As it was for the boys golf team, the Lowry High School swim team was hitting the reset button last weekend after a two-week way layoff in the schedule.
The Buckaroos returned to the pool at Incline Village on April 10 for a four-way dual with Incline, North Tahoe and Truckee, who was the state runner-up last year in the boys and girls divisions.
Lowry figured to run away in the team scores against North Tahoe and Incline, with the anticipation of how the dual would go against the Wolverines.
The Buckaroo boys beat Incline 179-17, North Tahoe 183-8 and Truckee 145-97. The Lowry boys are now 4-1 on the season. The Buckaroo girls were just as successful, defeating Incline 130-102, North Tahoe 145-82 and Truckee 119-113.
"To say it was successful weekend it would be an understatement," said LHS coach Mike Owens. "It was the first time this year we split our team up and traveled with just the varsity team and they performed better than I could have asked. As coaches, we had focused on the meet as a chance to see how our team would perform against the defending (league) champions and undefeated Truckee. They always have had a strong team, well trained and certainly strong in meets at Lake Tahoe elevation. To even make it more challenging we had just come off a two week competition break and a spring break. The team knew it had to bring their A-game if they had a chance to beat them."
Lowry's veteran swimmers turned in a strong performance, leading to the victory. Kelsea Perkinson came in first in the 50-yard freestyle with a time of 28.20 seconds. Incline's Christina Goetz was second at 29.50. In addition, Perkinson was third overall in the 100-yard breaststroke at 1:23.15.
Even though there were four different teams in the dual, swimmers race just once in the event. All of the times are combined, but are separated for the different duals.
Emma Kracaw took home the top spot in the 100-yard freestyle in a time of 1:07.89. Kracaw was second in the 200-yard freestyle with a time of 2:30.97. Madison Lozano set new personal times in the 50-yard freestyle and 100-yard butterfly. Lozano was third overall in the 50 freestyle at 29.91 and was fifth overall in the 100 butterfly at 1:17.62.
The Buckaroo girls were propelled into the win in the 500-yard freestyle. Truckee didn't have a swimmer in the 500, while Lowry's Cherice Armstrong (8:08.06) and Abbie Whitaker (8:56.56) were fourth and fifth overall. However, they were first and second in the dual against Truckee.
"That was big for us," Owens said. "We were able to get the points from that race, which helped us win. If we don't have anybody in the race, we lose to Truckee."
In addition, the Lowry girls were second, third and fourth in the 200-yard medley relay and second and third in the 400-yard freestyle relay.
"We had discussed not having any disqualifications and to keep close to the Truckee swimmers," Owens said. "Even though we were also competing against Incline and North Tahoe we had to try to keep up with Truckee swimmers. We also knew that if we didn't come in first we were deep enough to come in second and third on every event that we entered. And that is exactly what happened."
On the boys side, Christian Gray finished first in the 100-yard freestyle in a time of 58.52, as he beat out teammate Leo Avila, who was second at 59.26. Avila's time was a career best. Gray also finished second in the 50-yard freestyle at 25.52 and Avila was third overall in a time of 25.54.
Liam Wells and Garrett Gray led a 1-2 finish in the 500-yard freestyle with times of 7:26.41 and 7:27.67. Jiovanni Madrid and Jacob Hales were second and third in the 200-yard freestyle with times of 2:30.78 and 2:37.78 and Madrid was thirds in the 100-yard butterfly at 1:13.13. Wyatt Lester (2:57.72) and J.R. Perkinson were third and fifth in the 200-yard individual medley, while Matthew Jock, Elijah Frei, Lester and Tristen Waller were fourth through seventh in the 50-yard freestyle.
The Lowry boys picked up a number of points in the relays and were second and third in the 200-yard medley and were first, second and third in the 400 freestyle relay.
"The relay teams for both the boys and girls had a mix of veteran swimmers and new swimmers that just all came through," Owens said. "This was a total team effort from all the swimmers that competed this weekend and needless to say we needed all of them to beat a very good Truckee team."
Lowry continued last weekend last Saturday in Minden, with a dual against Sparks. The Buckaroo girls won 159-49 and the boys picked up a 179-38 victory.
Lowry is off this weekend and travels to Reno on April 26 for an invitational with the rest of the schools in northern Nevada.[[In-content Ad]]
