EHS swim and dive strong in home invitational
By The Emporia Gazette (Contact)
Friday, April 27, 2007
The Emporia High girls swimming and diving team turned in perhaps its most complete performance of the season Thursday night at the Emporia Invitational.
The Lady Spartans had one event winner — Hilary Larson in the 100-yard freestyle — to go along with five runner-up finishes, which propelled Emporia to a second-place finish as a team with 435 points. EHS had 14 top-5 finishes in all.
Washburn Rural swam away with the team championship with 590 points.
Larson won the 100 free in a time of 58.66 seconds, one-half second in front of Jordan Argo of Parsons High School. Larson also finished second in the 200-yard free in a State-qualifying time of 2 minutes, 7.42 seconds.
Whitney Starr placed second in the 100-yard butterfly in a time of 1:08.77, with her teammate, Caitlin McGuire, finished less than a second behind in fourth in a time of 1:09.49.
The two nearly flip-flopped places in the 50-yard freestyle, as McGuire took second place (27.37 seconds) while Starr came in fifth (27.76).
Morgan Goad turned in a second-place finish for EHS by coming in less than a second behind Washburn Rural’s Hannah Molden in the 100-yard backstroke in a time of 1:06.61. Goad also finished high in the 200-yard individual medley, placing third in a time of 2:33.65.
Emporia went 2-3-4 in the diving competition, as Hayley Fry was the top placer for EHS with a score of 163.40 to finish second behind Washburn Rural’s Taylor Martindale (182.60). Alli Armitage finished third (160.00) and Aubrey Armitage came in fourth (152.20).
Three Lady Spartans finished in the top 10 of the 100-yard breaststroke, as Jennie Loucks finished seventh (1:22.51), Summer Wilson placed eighth (1:27.60) and Michelle Thompson came in ninth (1:29.19).
In the 500-yard free, Angie Harris and Cali Schelling finished seventh and eighth, respectively.
In the relays, Emporia scored three third-place finishes. The team of Goad, McGuire, Starr and Kathryn Scherich began the meet with a third-place finish in the 200-yard medley relay in a time of 2:06.72 to finish behind teams from Washburn Rural (2:02.92) and Parsons (2:05.69).
Larson, McGuire, Scherich and Starr combined to place third in the 200-yard freestyle relay in a time of 1:51.53, also behind teams from Washburn Rural and Parsons.
In the last race of the evening, Larson, Harris, Goad and Scherich swam the 400-yard freestyle relay in a time of 4:15.60 to finish behind Washburn Rural and Hayden.