FEDERAL WAY – The Puyallup Vikings didn't expect to be at the Class 4A state swimming and diving championships when the season began.

Senior Chris Utterback said it wasn't even a possibility.

Yet there they were Friday afternoon. Seven of them. And they pushed each other as much as they did in the past month, when personal records dropped like flies, and confidence and camaraderie flew to the roof.

The Puyallup Vikings didn’t have anyone advance to Saturday’s state finals at the King County Aquatic Center. But co-head coaches Casi Messineo and Andrea Stammen wore wide smiles and spoke highly of their athletes.

“We’ve both coached at other schools, and this was truly the whole group that came together,” Messineo said.

It started with a goal: To get their 400-yard freestyle relay team to state. The Vikings wound up sending two relays and couple of individual competitors, even when the mid-January snow and ice storm delayed practice for a week. Then there was a maintenance issue with the pool, and Utterback called it “scary.”

“We were worried they weren’t fixing it in time,” he said. “We were getting into the postseason, and we were getting stressed.”

The Vikings had just two practices during the week of the league championships, but the team rallied. Utterback said he dropped five seconds in his 200 individual medley and 2.5 seconds in his 100 butterfly.

“Going into districts, we were thinking, ‘Does lightning strike twice?’ ” he said. “And then, it happened again.”

Puyallup swimmers were particularly proud of their relay teams.

Utterback joined senior Nick Ost, senior Dallin Terry and sophomore Jake Hodges in the 200 medley relay, and all four swam personal-best legs on Friday. They finished 19th in 1 minute, 46.90 seconds, an improvement of 0.77 seconds over their previous best. 

Vikings sophomore Lane Griffin swam the anchor leg of the 400 free relay and helped Hodges, Utterback and Ost finish in 3:30.62. The team finished 18th, two spots out of Saturday’s consolation final.

“We knew districts was for sure,” Ost said of how far team members thought they would go. “We didn’t really think we would rise to the occasion.”

But Ost said that, during his four years with the program, the Vikings have never sent more than a half-dozen swimmers to state.

“It was a big success,” he said. “It was a very welcome surprise.”

Individually, Ost placed 19th in the 200 IM in 2:08.14, and Utterback and Griffin each finished 20th. Utterback finished the 100 fly in 57.26, and Griffin completed the 100 free in 51.37.