Young swimmers pace Gig Harbor in prelims. Curtis, Tahoma have top qualifiers

Gig Harbor High School freshman Billy Oates and sophomore Andrew Sexton certainly aren’t the most experienced swimmers at the Class 3A state meet, but you wouldn’t know by their demeanor — or by their accomplishments during Friday’s preliminaries.

Oates and Sexton each qualified for the finals in their two individual events, Oates in the 50-yard freestyle and 100 butterfly, and Sexton in the 100 free and 200 free.

“I think today went well, but I think the finals could be better,” Oates said. “Just a little more mental prep.”

Oates had the third-best 3A prelims time in the 100 fly (51.57 seconds) and the fifth-best time in the 50 free(21.53).

Sexton qualified fourth in the 200 free in 1:43.72, which is just 0.55 seconds behind Bainbridge’s Jude Wenker, who is the top qualifier. Sexton also had the fifth-best time in the 100 free, finishing in 47.60.

Though Sexton is within striking distance of Wenker going into the finals, he expected to make more progress on Friday.

“I was seeded second (in the 200 free) and coming in, I expected it to be easy to be top-three, but currently I’m in fourth in the 200 and fifth in the 100,” Sexton said. “I think I’m just going to have to step it up tomorrow.”

Oates and Sexton also helped the Tides reach the finals in the 200 and 400 free relays, qualifying third in the 200 free relay and fifth in the 400. Their performance in the prelims has the Tides thinking a team trophy on Saturday is possible.

“I thought it was pretty good for our team overall,” Sexton said. “On our relays, we switched it up a little bit. Usually we focus on the medley relay, but today we switched to the 4x100, and I think that’s just going to give us a chance to score more points.”

Stadium senior Liam Casey-Minnick also qualified for the finals in two individual events, finishing seventh in the 500 free (4:48.17) and eighth in the 200 IM (1:57.20). His teammate, senior Bryce Soriano, qualified fourth in the 100 breast with a time of 58.50.

Stadium junior Gabriel Nickels, who was a top seed in the 200 free and 500 free entering the meet, scratched from one of his events. He finished 13th in the 200 free before withdrawing from the later 500 free race.

In 4A, Curtis and Tahoma each have top-qualifiers.

Vikings freshman Patrick Keough entered the 200 free with the top time in 4A this season. Friday, he showed why, qualifying first in the event with a time of 1:42.

Keough also qualified first in the 100 fly, finishing with a time of 49.72, good enough for All-American consideration.

Curtis also qualified all three of its relays for the finals — which should give the Vikings a boost in the team race Saturday.

Tahoma junior Nathan Ainsworth, who came into the 50 free ranked sixth, qualified first with a time of 20.84 — more than a second better than his seed time.

In 2A, a good day for Fife was highlighted by the performance of senior David Zadniprovkiy, who qualified in 1-meter diving with a semifinal score of 224.45.

After Friday’s preliminaries, Zadniprovskiy trailed only Bellevue sophomore Elijah Drew, who is in first place with a score of 255.70.

Fife senior Chris Kim also had a good day. Kim qualified for the finals in both of his individual events — the 100 breast (fourth, 58.84) and 100 fly (sixth, 53.76). He also helped the 200 medley relay qualify sixth, finishing in 1:43.91.

Trojans senior Lewis Wentler also qualified to swim in the finals of the 500 free. He had the sixth-best time Friday, finishing in 4:57.72.