The Lowry High School swim team began its postseason this past weekend in Carson City to compete in the Northern 3A Regional Championships for a chance to go to the state championship meet in Carson again the following week.
The top four qualifiers in each event return to Carson on Saturday to compete against the rest of the state.
"I am impressed that we had 10 swimmers make it to the finals on Saturday and everybody dropped or maintained their times," said LHS coach Shelby Ruff. "It is always great to see records continue to drop. In swimming you are really just racing against the clock.”
Matthew Lizanetz, Ashton Kalkoske, Tristan Miller and Aidan Maher (4 minutes, 5.47 seconds) teamed up for a third-place finish to punch their ticket to state in the 400 meters freestyle.
The Buckaroos also qualified in the 200 medley relay with a fourth place finish (1:58.94) from Evan Jeppsen, Charles Gonin, Hunter Lewis, and Miller.
“I have been swimming for about five years," Lewis said. "I mainly do short distance in the backstroke and the free style. I like the 100 backstroke the most, because that is the one that I am the best in. My season has gone well, I have progressed since last year and I enjoy interacting with the team.”
Tara Higley was the top girl finisher for Lowry with an eighth-place finish (3:48.72) in the 200 meter individual medley.
“I think this was probably the best season that we have had,” Ruff said. “We have a great bunch of kids. A lot of people have started swimming with Whitewater or High Desert. So they are coming into the season better conditioned and with a little bit better technique than they would after just taking the rest of the year off, so we have had a chance to focus more on conditioning and spend some more time tweaking things like our starts and turns that other teams typically beat us out on. We have a strong team this year; they got along well and we have great relay teams.”
Gonin also made it through to state with a fourth-place finish (5:46.61) in the 500 meter freestyle.
Lowry junior Mackie Grady also took part in the regional championships
“I do a club swim team in addition to Lowry, so I have been to the Carson Aquatic Center quite often," Grady said. "But this is my first time here with the high school. I feel like the team has been improving their times every week, and we swim in different events every weekend so that we can come up to this point and qualify in different events for regionals. I am more of a distance swimmer than a sprinter, so I like the 200-500 meter races. I swam the 500 three times this year, and I have dropped my time in each race.”
The NIAA State Championships will be determined at the Carson Aquatic Center on Saturday.
“I think it will be a good season next year, a lot of our boys are juniors,” Ruff concluded. “Hopefully we can gather some more of those athletes from the club teams to replace them after that.”
