Kentwood’s 200 free relay makes a splash at state meet

Kentwood’s 200 freestyle relay finished ninth at the Boys 4A State Swim and Dive Championships on Feb. 21 and 22 at the King County Aquatic Center in Federal Way.

By Katherine Smith • February 26, 2014 12:02 pm

Kentwood’s 200 freestyle relay finished ninth at the Boys 4A State Swim and Dive Championships on Feb. 21 and 22 at the King County Aquatic Center in Federal Way.

This year, area schools had fewer entrants in the state meet than in years past, with no entries from Tahoma, and only two from Kentlake — one swimmer and one diver.

South Puget Sound League 4A North powerhouse Kentridge finished third in the overall team standings. Kentwood finished 26th.

Kentwood had several entries and the Conqueror’s 200 and 400 freestyle relays qualified for finals on Saturday as well as senior Brian Wright who swam in two individual events on Saturday.

In preliminaries the Kentwood 200 medley relay of Jordan Wachter, Kevin Molly, Wright and Logan Stoick finished 22nd.

Wright then swam in the 200 freestyle, making the top 16 with a 12th place finish in a time of 1 minute, 49.84 seconds.

Dane Turnbull, also from Kentwood, just missed the finals cutoff with a 17th place finish in the 50 free with a time of 23.07.

In diving, Kentlake’s Evan Eidal was 18th after preliminaries with a score of 124.15. He competed in semifinals and held on to the 18th place spot with a score of 200.65, just outside the top 16 cutoff for finals.

Molloy finished 19th in the 100 butterfly with a time of 56.42.

Wright and Stoick finished 16th and 23rd, respectively, in the 100 freestyle.

The lone swim from Kentlake came from freshman Elias Knobloch in the 500 freestyle, who finished 22nd in a time of 5:16.03.

The 100 backstroke was a close race between Stoick and Turnbull with only two hundredths of a second separating the teammates. Stoick claimed 20th with a time of 58.52 and Turnbull 22nd in 58.54.

In the final swim of the day the Kentwood 400 free relay of Stoick, Molloy, Turnbull and Wright finished 14th and earned a spot in the finals.

On Saturday, Wright finished 15th in the 200 freestyle finals with a time of 1:50.24, and 12th in the 100 free with a time of 49.21.

The Kentwood 400 free relay moved up to 11th place in finals with a time of 3:22.45.

Newport won the team state championship title with a combined team score of 215.5 points.