Two Emporia High athletes won their respective event titles Tuesday at the Topeka West Swimming and Diving Invitational to help the Spartans finish second as a team.
Aaron Clark in the 50 freestyle and Derek Krause in the diving competition each claimed first-place finishes, which gave EHS enough of a boost to finish with 399 team points, second only to Washburn Rural’s 494 points.
“We swam pretty well,” EHS coach Bob Yevak said. “The kids swam hard for being so tired.”
Clark won the 50 free in a time of 23.15 seconds, just ahead of Rural’s Jeremiah Ungerer, who touched the wall in 23.36 seconds.
Krause picked up his second straight diving title by finishing with a score of 194.05, which was enough to beat out Rural’s Caleb Herrick. Emporia also saw Sam Nolan and Alex Neises finish third and fifth, respectively, in the diving event.
A couple of relay squads also came through for EHS, including a State-qualifying run in the 200 freestyle relay.
The team of Clark, Scott Peterson, Dillon Suprian and Sergio Segura, after just missing out on making the State time last week, swam well enough to qualify by finishing with a time of 1:36.03, which gave the Spartans a second-place finish behind Rural (1:30.75).
Also picking up a second-place finish was the 400 free relay team of Clark, Adam Coburn, Cord Stanley and Segura, as they finished in a time of 3:41.70.
The Spartans’ 200 medley relay squad of Suprian, Michael Stauffer, Cody Yevak and Peterson came in fourth (2:00.36), Yevak finished fourth individually in the 100-yard butterfly (1:06.36) and Coburn placed fifth in the 200 freestyle (2:08.26) to round out the top-5 finishes by the Spartans.
Segura (54.75) and Suprian (57.62) finished sixth and seventh, respectively in the 100 free, Coburn (5:51.25) placed seventh in the 500 free, Stauffer came in seventh in the 100 breaststroke, Cody Muckenthaler (1:23.57) placed seventh in the 100 backstroke and Peterson (2:39.55) came in 12th in the 200 individual medley to round out the top placers for the Spartans.
EHS is back in action Thursday when it plays host to the Emporia Invitational at the EHS pool.