FEDERAL WAY – The Gig Harbor Tides’ top two swimmers put on a show Friday, and both of the team’s freestyle relays advanced to championship finals during a productive first day of the Class 4A state meet.
Junior Evan Indahl reached the top-eight finals in both the 200-yard individual medley and the 500 freestyle, and sophomore Erik Nielsen will swim in the championship final in the 100 free and the consolation final in the 200 free.
The 4A finals will begin at 2:15 p.m. Saturday.
Indahl’s time of 1 minute, 58 seconds in the 200 IM was a personal record. He shaved 0.59 seconds off his season best. He was a bit slower in the 500 free (4:50.48), but he got nabbed the last spot to the finals.
Nielsen’s better event was the shorter of the two freestyles. His 48.63 was just one-tenth off his fastest this season and put him within a second of event-leader Brian Ruggles of Issaquah.
Nielsen finished in a tie for 12th with Ryan Gansneder of Mount Rainier in the 200 free (1:48.31).
One of the bigger moves was the Tides’ 200 free relay, which cut more than a second off its seed time and finished with the fourth-fastest prelim mark at 1:31.12. Team members include junior Thomas Liu, junior Daniel Arroyo, Indahl and Nielsen.
Gig Harbor’s 400 free relay also will race in the championship heat after the quartet put up the sixth-fastest prelim time of 3:20.15. Arroyo and senior Baylor Stearnes joined Indahl and Nielsen in that race.
The Tides’ third relay, the 200 medley, picked up the final spot into Saturday’s consolation round after it finished 16th in 1:45.77. That team consisted of senior Andrew Van Camp, senior Matthew Collins, senior Jeffrey Hale and Arroyo.
Individually, diver Bastian Weyn, a sophomore, made the cut to the top 16 divers and will perform his final three dives during Saturday’s finals. Weyn will enter the day in 14th place with 194.55 points.
Collins reached the consolation finals in the 100 breaststroke after he turned in the 12th-fastest time of 1:02.71, and Hale finished 23rd in the 100 butterfly (57.87).
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