March 5, 2009 at 8:21 a.m.
March 5, 2009
Handful of boys earn trips to state swimming and diving meet
Willhite, Heggerston, Roggemann, Smith, Harwell and Vitalis highlight section qualifiers
Handful of boys earn trips to state swimming and diving meet
After a sluggish start to the sectional tournament last week, the Chisago Lakes Wildcats kicked it up a notch to send a handful of swimmers to the state meet,
"Our goal was to qualify for Saturday's finals, knowing that Saturday was the day to really crank it up," Head Coach Mark Nordby said. "This strategy nearly backfired as we seemed a bit slow and just couldn't get our speed going on the first day. The other teams at sections really seemed to be gunning for the first day."
In the preliminaries, the meet was kicked off with four personal bests in the 200-yard freestyle. Brody Heggerston broke a school record with a 1:55.79, and qualified for the finals in eighth place.
Other swimmers who set personal bests in the event were Ryan Smith, Matt Mattson and Rob Bjornson. Smith and Mattson qualified for the consolation finals in 13th and 16th place, respectively.
Only John Harwell was able to qualify in the next event, finishing in 14th place in the 200-yard individual medley.
In the 50-yard freestyle, Alex Vitalis set a personal record with a 24.00 flat, and qualified for the consolation finals, finishing in 11th place. Andy Willhite also qualified with a 24.17 to finish in 14th place. Mitch Gebauer recorded a personal best in the event, finishing in 25.39 seconds.
Kevin Roggemann was the next qualifier for the 'Cats swim team, earning ninth place honors in the 100-yard fly.
In the 100-yard freestyle, Heggerston was back at it, earning a third place finish with a time of 51.05 seconds.
In the 500-yard freestyle, two Wildcats earned qualifying times. Ryan Smith finished in sixth place in 5:27.23, and Mattson earned an 11th place finish with a personal best 5:34.06.
As the meet pressed on, more and more Wildcats were earning spots in the consolation finals, but just narrowly missing out on the section finals. John Harwell reversed that trend with a sixth place finish in the 100-yard breaststroke.
Also, all three relay teams qualified into the section finals a few days later,
Section Finals
"We knew this was our best day, but it was tough on Thursday watching other teams really swimming fast," Nordby said. "But we weren't quite tapered down yet. Our goal for the day was to qualify as many to state as possible, and also improve out times from Thursday."
They got off to a so-so start to the meet when their medley relay team dropped two and a half seconds off of their time from the day before, and swam a season best. All of that didn't matter, however, when they finished a half second away from the time they needed to go to the state tournament.
Other swimmers were doing well and setting records, but they just couldn't crack the barrier into the state meet times.
Heggerston broke a school record for the second time in as many days with a 1:54.60 in the 200 free, but it was only good for sixth place.
Harwell earned a personal best in the 200 individual medley, but his 2:20.36 slotted him in 11th place, well out of the reach of the state tourney.
Willhite and Vitalis finished 13th and 14th, respectively, in the 50 freestyle, and the day was quickly ending without any state entrants.
Willhite finally broke through, though, in the diving portion of the event. The senior scored 402.75 to place first in the section. His score also earned him All-American consideration and the Section 4A Diver of the Year award. "That gave the whole team a needed emotional lift," Nordby said. "And it came at the perfect time. It was like a switch had been flipped and it was time to start hammering out some awesome times."
Roggemann was the next Wildcat to punch his ticket to the University of Minnesota Aquatic Center. Although he only qualified for the consolation finals, Roggemann blasted through it to earn his spot. "Because Kevin didn't place in the top eight, he couldn't move up any places in finals, but, what he did do was destroy the field in the consolation finals," Nordby said. "His time would've placed him fifth overall, but with him crushing the consolation field, it made his win even more impressive and again gave the team an even greater lift."
Heggerston kept the ball rolling on the state tournament. He placed third in the 100-yard freestyle with a personal best time of 50.50 seconds.
Smith, who's only a sophomore, earned his first trip to the state meet when he finished in third place in the 500-yard freestyle. He broke the school record in the 500 with a 5:20.31. "Ryan swam a very smart race and had fairly even splits throughout," Nordby said. "A couple of swimmers from other teams went out very fast, but Ryan didn't panic. He crept up closer throughout the race, pulled into third place with 200 yards let to go and hung on for the rest of the race."
The 'Cats hearts were broken in the next relay, however. In the 200-yard freestyle relay, Heggerston, Roggemann, Willhite and Vitalis smashed the school record and finished in second place with a time of 1:32.09. The quartet finished just two-hundreths of a second behind the winning squad from Grand Rapids. "I was going crazy, as were the guys," Nordby exclaimed. But, a few minutes later, reality set in on the squad. They had been disqualified for an illegal relay exchange. "As far as emotions, it was about as high as a swimmer can feel, and then just seconds later about as low," Nordby explained. "One of my proudest moments though for this entire season is how this team responded. They didn't point fingers, they didn't blame anyone, they obviously were disappointed, but our seniors showed true leadership by focusing on our next events and getting ready to support the next swimmers."
The next swimmers didn't disappoint, either. Harwell finished in fourth place in the 100 breaststroke to earn a trip to the state meet,
Three out of the four swimmers earned their redemption in the 400-yard freestyle relay. Heggerston, Roggemann and Vitalis, along with Smith, finished in sixth place in the event and got into the tournament just minutes after missing out because of the DQ. The team dropped eight seconds off of their Thursday prelim time. Nordby said they each had to have personal bests to qualify for the meet, and they each did that. "It was a great team effort by all four," he said. "The day started out slowly, but man, did the guys pick up the intensity in the second half."
Comments:
Commenting has been disabled for this item.