November 16, 2016 at 2:48 p.m.
Olson and Nelson returning to state meet for third time
Olson and Nelson returning to state meet for third time
Both Kalli Jo Olson and Payton Nelson have qualified for the state tournament multiple times. The senior tandem will get to take one more crack at podium finishes in their career. Last year, Olson was left on the outside looking in as she finished in ninth place, one spot off the podium. Nelson, on the other hand, made an eight spot jump from her first state meet appearance to last year’s 17th place jump. Again, she just barely missed the cut to move on, as the top 16 advanced.
Their paths to the state tournament were vastly different. Nelson, who has been on fire all year, registered a 304.15 total score to win the diving event. She was in second place after the semis, but an impressive finals routine vaulted her to a 10-point win after the finals. Her 394.15 beat Annikki Neubeck of Mahtomedi, who scored 285.35. After those two, no one was even close, with third place Kapani Kirkland scoring 358.85.
In the backstroke, which has always been Olson’s speciality, she didn’t finish in the top two that would normally lead to a state berth, but she finish in a qualifying time of 1:00.39, which automatically put her into the state meet.
The race was a tough battle between Olson, Gabi Baldwin, Grace Snyder and Kali Fischer. Baldwin swims for Hill-Murray and Snyder and Fischer are both Blazers from Visitation, a Minnesota swimming powerhouse.
The foursome were the top finishers in the prelims, with Baldwin just beating Snyder by .14 seconds and Olson less than a half of a second behind them. Fischer was just behind her by .21 seconds.
The cluster was sorted out a bit more in the finals as Baldwin turned on another gear, breaking the Section 4A record with a 58.26 second swim in the finals. Snyder was able to fight off Baldwin and Fischer with a time of 1:00.01. Olson would’ve been the top seed in the prelims with her finals time of 1:00.39, but with the other girls shifting into high gear she had to just settle for the state berth. Fischer also had an automatic state qualifying time of 1:00.42, just three-hundredths of a second behind Olson.
The rest of the Wildcats had a good meet, but with Visitation’s ridiculous talent and depth, it was a battle all day. “We qualified more swimmers in the top eight than any of our previous years with them,” Head Coach Ellen Heath said.
The 200 medley relay was the tone setter for both prelims and finals, as they ended up finishing in third place overall behind a foursome from Vis and Hill. The team included Olson, Hannah Janzig, Hannah Stec and Katie Crum. Olson also had a fifth place finish in the 100 butterfly, missing state qualifying time by just under three seconds.
Stec pulled out a finals appearance in the 50 freestyle, finishing eighth. Janzig and Stec both finished in the top eight in the 100 breaststroke.
Savannah Gorski came in fifth place in the section in diving, scoring a 330.65.
The later relay teams performed well, also. Annika Overgaard, Laura Campbell, Ilse Johnson and Crum combined for a fourth place finish in the 200 freestyle relay. In the 400 free, Johnson, Olson Janzig and Stec finished in sixth place.
As a team, the Wildcats tallied 235 points which was good enough for fourth place out of the 10 teams competing. Visitation ran away with the meet with 632 points and Hill-Murray came in second with 392. Mahtomedi was the third place team with 311 points.
“Hard work and great race strategies placed us quite high and scored a lot of team points,” Heath said. “We were one of the smaller section teams and didn't fill every event but we swam fast. Our athletes have been training during a long season and worked extremely hard to get this fast and dive this well.”
Nelson and Olson both participated in the state meet after the Press went to print, Nelson competed on Wednesday and Olson on Thursday. For their full state meet results, check out next week’s Chisago County Press.
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