The Midland and Midland Legacy swim teams competed at states on Feb. 23 and 24, and Coach Steven Flatos was very happy with the way his teams responded in the meet.
“The daily commitment and hard work is paying off for these student athletes,” said Flato, who coaches both the Bulldogs and the Rebels. “They are starting to believe and see they can compete at the state level. We believe they will use this year to fuel next year's success.”
Flato said this was one of the fastest state meets in the entire country, as the Keller boys’ team set four national and state records.
Allyse Abbott of Midland
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While none of the Rebels or Bulldogs had those kind of times or scores, everyone who competed placed in the top 16 in preliminaries which allowed them to compete in the second day of events.
Midland
The Midland swim and dive team competed in the Class 6A state meet on Feb. 23, with Hannah Krueger leading the way with a fifth place finish in the 100 yard freestyle and also set a Midland High School record in the preliminary round.
Krueger set a school record in the 100 yard freestyle preliminary race with a time of 50.17. The sophomore placed 14th in the 200 yard freestyle in the preliminaries to qualify for the finals, as well. However, she came down with a stomach bug and was forced to be a scratch in the 200 yard freestyle finals.
In the 100 yard freestyle finals she took fifth with a time of 50.85.
Senior Alysse Abbot qualified third after preliminaries in diving with a score of 299.20. She finished in fifth with 419.50. This was her highest finish at states of her career.
On the boys’ side, Jake Shelton swam two lifetime best times in the 200 and 100 yard freestyle races. Shelton had a 15th place finish in the 200 yard freestyle with a time of 1:40.18.60 after setting a school record in preliminaries with 1:40.18.
In the 100 yard freestyle, Shelton had a school record time of 46.18 in the preliminaries. He placed 14th overall, with a time of 46.41 in the finals.
Midland Legacy
Sophomore David Fuentes was the top swimmer, placing 20th in the 50 yard freestyle with a time of 21.62.
The Legacy boys’ 200 yard freestyle team placed 14th in preliminaries with a time of 1:26.45. In the finals they took 13th with a time of 1:26.04. The team included Fuentes, David Sites, Brendan Morgan and George Workman.
“This has been the biggest state qualifying team since we started coaching seven years ago,” Flato said.
This was the first state meet for juniors Morgan and Workman, and the freshman Sites. Last year nobody was able to make it to the finals in this meet, but this year everyone made the consolation finals or the top 8 finals.