Lee wins state title in the 500 freestyle

By JEFF NORTON
SPORTS EDITOR

With a wide open field and a hungry Thomi Lee, it seemed inevitable that a state title was coming home to Chisago Lakes. Lee made good on her aspirations and won the first championship in Chisago Lakes girls swimming history. The junior came into the state tournament with a subpar 5:16 qualifying time, but she simply just needed the competition to push her to new levels. In the preliminaries, Lee swam in the same heat as Mankato West’s Chantal Nack, who was the favorite going into the tournament. Lee and Nack both knew they just needed to swim good enough times to get into the finals and get an inside lane. Still, it was telling for the weekend when Lee swam a personal best 5:05.02 to win the heat, besting Nack by over three seconds.

Lee earned the top seed in the finals with the time, Nack the third seed. The other top seeds who had state title aspirations were Holy Family’s Mackenzie Braden, who had a 5:07.65 in prelims and senior Abby Erdmann of Breck, who had a 5:08.55 qualifying time. They were the top four seeds, and with lane selection, naturally ended up right next to each other. Lee took the fourth lane, Braden the fifth, Nack the third and Erdmann the sixth. Lee opened with the fastest first leg, but there was nary a body length between the top four competitors. Lee kept a miniscule lead throughout the first couple legs, but then Braden, a senior, began to make a little move and pulled ahead of Lee for a second. Just as Braden began to turn up her heat, Lee and Nack took off and regained the top two spots. Lee stayed just an edge ahead of Nack and every time she came up for a breath with her head tilted slightly back, Nack was in her sight line. Both swimmers’ kicks got bigger at about the 400 yard mark and the race boiled down to a two-person battle between Lee and Nack. Every turn and every stroke, Lee held off the charging Nack at about a half a body length.

On the last turn, with only 25 yards left in the grueling marathon, Lee burst off the wall while Nack came up a bit slower and Lee suddenly had a full body length lead. She finished out her kick while the challengers huffed and puffed behind her. Lee touched the wall in 5:00.72, shaving over six seconds off of her personal best on the weekend. Nack touched at 5:02.31 to take second place. Braden finished in third place at 5:05.12 and Erdmann took fourth with a 5:05.13 Lee immediately looked to her left and gave a weary embrace to Nack, who was near out of breath as they grasped. Once out of the pool, the smile didn’t disappear from Lee’s face for a long time. She proudly climbed the highest step of the eight-person podium as the first ever state champion in Chisago Lakes girls swimming. “I just trained hard and I focused on the things that I knew I had trouble with and I worked on making them better,” Lee excitedly said after descending the podium.

“We tapered her a lot like last year, but did a little more speed work,” Head Coach Ed Wakefield said. “We focused a little more on technique and stroke work without putting in as many yards.” Wakefield confessed that he was nervous after seeing the results in the 200-yard freestyle earlier in the day. In that race, Nack and Lee had gone head-to-head in the finals but it was Nack who shaved almost five seconds off of her preliminary time and won the state title. “After seeing Chantal blow everyone out in the 200, I thought she may have really taken it easy in the 500 prelims and that she would turn it up in the finals,” he said. Wakefield was right, Nack did turn it up a notch, but Lee was able to match her stroke for stroke en route to the title. “It’s awesome to have a state champion period, but to have a state champion who is as good of a person as Thomi is, it’s just amazing,” Wakefield said. “Swimming ability aside, I’d love to have a team full of Thomi’s.

She is a great kid with great character.” Lee is only a junior and has next year to look forward to, where she was a few more goals and barriers in her sight. Next up is the school record of 4:58, held by her older sister Brogan Lee. “This is just really awesome right now,” Lee said with her older sister in mind. “I’ve always had to live up to my sister and I feel like I might have now.” Earlier results Earlier in the day, Lee finished fifth in the 200-yard freestyle to up her medal count to five in the last three years and the second year in a row that she earned two medals at the state tourney. Sam Thomsen had a rough stretch at the worst time. The senior, who had finished in the top 10 in the diving event the last two years, failed to qualify for even the semi-finals after a tough opening round. She was looking to add to her medal count after she finished in seventh place last year, but a few stumbles in her first dives sealed her fate. Thomsen only scored a 116.45 in the opening round, which put her in 26th place out of 32 divers.

Only the top 20 compete in the semifinals. Last year in the opening round, Thomsen scored 136.55 and that had barely gotten her into the semifinals before she turned it up a notch to rocket up the leaderboards. The ending for Thomsen is tough, as she was one of the more accomplished divers in Chisago Lakes’ girls history, going to the state tournament three times in a row and placing in the top 10 twice. “Sam is such a great kid and has been a great asset to this team for so many years,” Wakefield said of the senior.