EHS divers finish 1-2 at home meet
Swimming takes seventh place
By Jeremy Shapiro
Monday, January 30, 2012
Drew Detwiler only needed a score of 280 to qualify for state diving.
Detwiler easily surpassed that mark by scoring a 343.7 while edging teammate Sam Johnson and beating seven other divers to take first place at the Emporia Invite Saturday at Emporia High School. The score earned him a spot at the state diving meet in Topeka next month.
“He was getting some sixes and sevens so that helped him a lot,” said EHS diving coach Barb Clark. “He was more composed and I feel like he was more focused today.”
Clark said it is more difficult to qualify earlier in the season because divers are only allowed six dives in a meet. Some of the dives that Detwiler performs cleanly weren’t allowed until Saturday, she said. Detwiler edged Johnson by .3 points. Jacob Davis of Winfield finished third with a score of 332.5.
Johnson had previously qualified for state. With both of them now assured of a trip to Topeka, Clark said they can work on some new dives in the next two meets at Manhattan.
“We have other new dives we want to incorporate,” Clark said. “It will be fun to have some new dives. Drew and Sam work really well together and complement each other. It’s a friendly competition. They are good kids to work with.”
Detwiler also competes in swimming events and he dislocated his shoulder later in Saturday’s meet. Clark said it’s happened to him before during wrestling and it doesn’t appear to be too serious.
“We’ll rest him and he’ll be back,” Clark said.
As for the swimming portion of the meet, Emporia had several season best times though the Spartans finished seventh out of eight teams. Wichita East won the meet title with 530 points. Kapuan Mt. Carmel was second with 431 points. EHS scored 178 and beat out El Dorado.
Assistant coach Lynette Yevak applauded several Spartan swimmers for cutting valuable seconds off their times.
Brett Williams took seventh in the 200-yard IM with a time of 2:33.64. He was 10th in the 100-yard butterfly, finishing the race in 1:04.66. Yevak said last year swimmers made it to state with times around 1:04.
Edward Leon was seventh in the 500 freestyle while teammate Benjamin Creech took ninth.
EHS also turned in three top 10 finishes in relay events. Tim Eichler, Williams, Johnson and Henry Sandoval teamed up to take 10th in the 200 freestyle relay in 1:45.30. Logan Ranger, Eichler, Leon and Sandoval were seventh in the 400 freestyle relay with a time of 4:07.66. Creech, Elliott Smith, Ethan Winter and Abraham Benitz were 10th in the same event.
EHS is down to one regular season meet. It will be Friday and Saturday at Kansas State University. That’s the same venue for the league met Feb. 9-10. State is Feb. 17-18.