MWL district title slips through the Colts grip

By Maren Fawkes
For the Beacon

There was standing room only at Willamalane Pool on Friday, Feb. 8 and Saturday, Feb. 9 for the Midwestern League District swim meet this year. While the Thurston Colts hopes and expectations had been high this year, the meet didn’t go quite as it had planned. Despite team member absences during final events, the Colts will be sending 19 swimmers to the state competition.
For the second year in a row the Colts boys team finished in second place with 390 points behind North Eugene in the district final, winning the 200-yard medley relay and finishing second in the 200-yard freestyle relay. The Colts girls team also won the 200-yard medley relay, but finished fifth overall with 259 points.
Jialin Hu the Colts’ coach was disappointed with the team members who failed to show up for their final events and let the team down, but overall he was proud of the team. “They tried their best. North Eugene is a good team and they swam great,” said Hu.
The Colts boy’s team qualified for the state meet in both the 200-yard freestyle and 200-yard medley relay as well as individual events, which is scheduled for next Friday and Saturday at Mount Hood Community College in Gresham. Senior Sam Carter will be returning to state for the 100-yard breaststroke and the 100-yard butterfly. Junior Wyman Tan also qualified for an individual event at state in the 50-yard freestyle with a very impressive time of 23.63 seconds.
Along with Carter and Tan, the 200-yard freestyle relay team is comprised of Ryan Hannum and Lindsey Brown with Timothy Lewellen, Brian Biancalana, Chris Stark and David Varin as alternates. The Colts 200-yard medley relay team is made up of Carter, Tan, Brown and Joseph Valdez with Lewellen, Varin, Robert Eastin and Matthew Woodward as alternates.
But the Colts girl’s team isn’t about to let the boys have all the fun. The girls 200-yard medley relay team will also be competing at state represented by Hailey Prociw, Holly Brown, Carianne Follett, and Nikki Lee with Hayley Rhoades, Kacy Durfee, Jenny Lee and Zi Wang as substitutes.
Looking forward to state, Hu plans to have his team focused and ready.
“With a hard competition there’s more challenge. We will try to work on technique and try to improve speed to get ready for state,” he said.
Although at the last minute Springfield High School didn’t qualify for the state meet, the Millers ended its season on a high note.
According to Millers’ coach Jackie James, most of the Springfield swimmers only swim for a few months of the year compared to some of the kids they were competing against who swim all year round.
“Though some of the kids were disappointed... they all actually did really really well. I think just about all the kids had personal best times between the two days,” said James.
For more information on the upcoming state meet please visit the OSAA website at http://www.osaa.org.