WINNEMUCCA - When Lowry High School dropped back down to Division I-A (formerly the 3A) in 2000, one team was left competing against the largest schools in the state.
The Buckaroo swim team had a number of strong swimmers come through the program during that time, with some going on to NCAA Division I schools.
This past fall the NIAA realigned its schools once again, and after that move a new Division I-A was created for high school swimming. The change paid off for the Buckaroos, as they will send a record number of its swimmers to the state championships on Saturday in Carson City.
"We were looking at this meet as a goal for our younger swimmers in the years to come," said LHS head coach Mike Owens. "We only had two seniors on the regional qualifying team."
Those two senior swimmers, Tori Echeverria and Matt Ruehl, both qualified for the state championships.
Echeverria came into the regional championships in the 50-yard freestyle and maintained that placing as she finished third with a career-best time of 27.69 to place second. She took three seconds off her 100-yard backstroke time to finish fourth with a career-best time of 1:08.90. The top four finishers in each event advance to the state championships. She beat out South Tahoe's Cassandra Marin, who finished at 1:09.32.
Ruehl finished with a career-best time of 1:15.09 in the 100-yard backstroke to make his way into the state meet. He came into the race as the No. 5 seed. Ruehl also swam in the 100-yard butterfly and finished fifth in a time of 1:14.39.
Freshman Kelsea Perkinson qualified for the state championships by taking four seconds off her time in the 100-yard breaststroke. She came into the regional ranked No. 6 in the event and finished fourth in the final with a career-best time of 1:20.96.
In the preliminaries on Friday, May 10, Matthew Jock and Leo Avila qualified for Saturday's final with Avila improving his time to 26.00 and Jock, ranked No. 9, moved up one spot to be in the top eight for Saturday's final.
In the 500-yard freestyle, Jiovanni Madrid took of 25 seconds off his best time and moved from eighth to sixth with a time of 6.33:47. Wyatt Lester swam the 200-yard individual medley and the 100-yard backstroke on Friday, May 10, and swam strong races for the team, according to the coach. He recorded a new best time of 1:16.03 in the backstroke.
Dain Maher also swam the 100-yard backstroke and recorded a career-best time of 1:11.03 to finish seventh.
"Going into Saturday's finals, we had 10 events that our swimmers had a chance to move on to state," Owens said. "We were feeling pretty good about ourselves."
The Buckaroos started Saturday off by having its girls 200-yard medley relay team advance to the state championships. The foursome of Sabrina Jensen, Perkinson, Echeverria, and Emma Kracaw each had new individual best times, as the team finished fourth at 2:12.17, taking off 3.42 seconds off its previous best time.
The boys 200-yard medley relay team of Maher, JR Perkinson, Ruehl and Avila qualified for state with a career-best time of 2:05.70, taking 1.30 seconds off its previous best mark.
"You can image we were so stunned and proud that those eight swimmers had stepped up to the pressure and performed so well," added the coach. "But we would find out that this was just the beginning of a great day."
As an individual, Kracaw swam in the 200-yard freestyle and posted her third career-best time in nine days. She finished seventh with a time of 2:28.54.
Avila and Jock swam in the competitive 50-yard freestyle finals with Avila finishing fifth in a time of 26.05, while Jock set a career-best time of 26.67 to place seventh. Avila also competed in the 100-yard freestyle final, finishing in fifth place with a time of 59.03. It was the first time that he broke the one-minute mark.
"After the first third of the meet we had nine swimmers going to state and we were thrilled from a team and coaches perspective," Owens said. "But we had some races coming up that we now believe we could surprise other teams with."
The girls 200-yard freestyle relay team of Kelsea Perkinson, Kenzie Maddox, Kracaw and Echeverria were ranked third coming into the regional and they made that hold up. All four of the girls provided career-best times in the legs they swam and the Lady Bucks finished third with a career-best time of 1:56.68. Lowry beat South Tahoe by two seconds and Sage Ridge by three seconds.
The boys 200-yard freestyle relay team of JR Perkinson, Lester, Avila and Jock posted a new best time of 1:48.83 to come in sixth place.
The Lady Bucks sent their third relay team to state as Maddox, Sabrina Jensen, Jessica Jensen and Kracaw, who were seeded seventh, qualified for state with a new best time of 4:40.41.
In the final event of the regional championships, the boys 400-yard freestyle relay team of Jock, Ruehl, Madrid and Maher took 28 seconds off its seed time to finish third at 4:16.57.
"We went to Carson in the hopes of having a strong showing and motivate all our younger swimmers," Owens said. "Instead, we now have the largest team going to state that Lowry High School has ever had. It's truly remarkable how well all the swimmers have stepped up when they needed to and how many of them had new best times. The regional can be very intimidating and we, the coaches and parents that attended the meet, couldn't have been more proud of our Lowry swimmers."
The Division I-A State Championships get underway at 1 p.m. Saturday in Carson City.[[In-content Ad]]
