Gig Harbor, Peninsula wrap up season with strong showing at 3A state swim meet

Much like the actual tides in Gig Harbor, the 2019 WIAA Class 3A state swimming championships have come and gone.

This year, Bellevue High School repeated as state champions finishing with a score of 303 points. Behind them in second place was Lake Washington scoring 263, and rounding out the top three was Bainbridge Island with a score of 203.

With all of their points tallied, Gig Harbor finished 12th in state with a score of 64 points and Peninsula finished 20th with 23 points at the King County Aquatic Center.

“State went as well as could be expected. The state [meet] is such a higher level meet than anything you run into preparing for it,” said Tides coach Mike Kelly. “Coming into the meet, I was looking at the other teams looking to crack into the top 15… we ended up in 12th place, so very respectable for us.”

For both Gig Harbor and Peninsula, the programs came away with some strong performances by their swimmers.

Gig Harbor

First up, the Tides. Coming into state, Gig Harbor was riding some high success as they not only took the top spot in the 3A SSC league meet, but also won the 3A West Central District meet.

Several swimmers and divers were primed to make some real runs placing high at state. This group included last year’s fourth place state diver Shaye DiMatteo.

Like her swimming teammates, the sophomore came into state with a win at districts under her belt.

“[Shaye] did a great job diving. She got through the first eight dives in fourth place and ended up in the finals maintaining that position, so she did really well,” Kelly said. “Shaye herself would agree that she is a much better diver this year, but the competition was very good this year.”

Once again, DiMatteo came in fourth with a score of 377.25 points. And also again this year, the state’s top 3A diver was Kayli Kersavage from Snohomish, finishing with a score of 438 points.

DiMatteo was not the only member of the Tides’ team to find success in the pool. Madeline Erickson showed tremendous improvement in her season as she had a top-12 finish in all of her events.

Erickson, a junior, swam two team events and one solo event in the 100 freestyle. In that event, she finished 10th with a time of 54.69 seconds. Her other placings came in the form of the 200 and 400 freestyle relay.

“She is very hard working and methodical about her training, I think she thinks about swimming outside the pool,” Kelly said. “She has goals of improvement each year. This year, she was like our Swiss army knife, her and Megan Hanson. I could stick them anywhere.”

And speaking of Hanson and her fellow senior captain Teghan Miller, they finished out their swimming career at Gig Harbor with a couple of top-12 finishes in their relays.

Hanson and Miller both were on the 200 free relay that also had Erikson and sophomore Sarah Grady that finished 12th with a time of 1:42.20. The same foursome finished 8th as well in the 400 relay with a time of 3:43.46.

Finally, the Tides’ last top tier finish came in the 200 medley relay where the team of junior Paige Everling, Hanson, junior Grace Meacham and Grady came in 12th with their time of 1:54.04.

“I was really proud of our athletes this year. It can be really easy to get intimidated by those big name schools,” Kelly said. “The knowledge that we weren’t fighting it out for a state title or even being in the top 10, and that we were going to go out and compete hard and have fun [made] it a very successful state meet for us.”

Peninsula

The Tides were not the only ones that had their moment in the pool as the Seahawks also had a good showing at state. In fact, they were within a spot or two of their crosstown rivals.

Whereas the Tides finished 12th in the 200 medley relay, right behind them in 13th were the team of seniors Ellie Hood and Emma Keith, junior Reina Nagata and sophomore Clarissa Sardinia. They finished with a time of 1:54.24.

Another Seahawk that had a strong showing was Hope Flanigan for the diving squad. Flanigan, a junior, scored 335.25 points to end the season with a 7th place finish at state.

Finally for the Seahawks, Hood competed and placed 14th in the 50 free with a time of 25.17 seconds.

This story was originally published November 20, 2019 at 6:00 AM.