Steilacoom diving team all over podium in 2A state meet; Gig Harbor, Stadium win individual titles in 3A
The Steilacoom Sentinels didn’t have enough to challenge for the top places on the podium at the Class 2A state boys swimming and diving championships this weekend.
But the Sentinels certainly had their moment – one that lasted for two days. And one that three of Steilacoom’s four divers memorialized on Saturday morning before the swim finals began at the King County Aquatic Center by climbing to the top spot on the awards stand and taking a picture in the No. 1 spot.
Those four Steilacoom divers totaled 52 points, which put the Sentinels on top of the team race for almost 48 hours, leading eventual champion Anacortes and its 44 points in the event. A Covid-19 related short-staffing issue at the facility precipitated a changed in the meet schedule, moving Event No. 5 – the diving – to Thursday for all classifications.
“They scored 51 points by themselves at districts,” Steilacoom coach Kathy Casey said. “By themselves, they beat several teams.”
The schedule change meant that Casey and her diving crew – Connor McPhail, Carlo Zavala, Aaron Burlingame and Nate Englund – led the meet from the conclusion of the Thursday morning session until Anacortes finished fifth in the 200-yard medley relay to begin the 2A swim finals at about 8:40 a.m. on Saturday morning, scoring 28 points to take over the lead for good.
“It is very fun,” said McPhail, one of the three juniors in the group. “It feels great.”
The diving competition did factor into the team championship race. The points scored by Anacortes provided the Seahawks with a margin of victory in a tough battle for the title with runner-up Pullman, 280-271.
Anacortes was the only team to score points in each of the 12 events. Individually, Isaac Beers of North Kitsap won the 100 free in a time of 45.98 seconds and added the 100 back in 49.88 to earn the Swimmer of the Meet.
Beers broke the meet record in the 100 free with a prelim time of 45.81 on Friday. He was the only individual double winner in 2A.
While Steilacoom did score some points in the swimming events, finishing with 153 points to place fifth overall, none of those 11 events came close to what the Sentinels did in the diving.
“It’s been great to see, the Steilacoom guys especially,” said Burlingame, a senior. “I taught everyone here how to dive so it’s great to see them take off like they have.”
Three of the four improved their standing from qualifying to competition. McPhail qualified fourth and placed third; Englund moved from 13th to ninth, just missing the podium; Zavala fell a single position, from fifth to sixth; and Burlingame jumped from 10th to fifth.
“I’ve had pretty big moves like that historically,” Burlingame said. “My sophomore year, I qualified 18th and I think I moved all the way to eighth. I just do well at state meets. I’m very pleased with how things turned out this year. At the start of the year, I said I wanted Top 5 and I very literally got Top 5.”
The depth in the event will continue to help Steilacoom thrive.
“They push each other to go bigger,” Casey said. “Even yesterday (during Wednesday’s practice), they were going after new things.”
And the 2022 diving success has the anticipation for next season already building for Casey and her team.
“My senior swimmers are very excited,” Casey said. “And that just dawned on them over the last few weeks. One of them (current junior Max Lamb) actually said, ‘We’re going to be good next year.’”
Ponnekanti gives Stadium a 3A title
Nic Ponnekanti scored 337.40 to win the diving competition for Stadium, while the Auburn pair of Levi Erickson and Isaac Osmak finished sixth and seventh on Thursday to temporarily put the Trojans in second place behind Ballard in the team race.
Gig Harbor senior Drew Huston out-touched Mercer Island’s Evan Liu to win the 200 IM in an all-American Consideration time of 1:50.65, giving the Tides the only local individual swim winner.
Mercer Island sprinted past everyone with a state and meet record win in the first swim final on Saturday afternoon, the 200 medley relay (1:32.42), and never took their foot off the pedal to capture their ninth team title since 2004 and second in a row, 367.5-258 over runner-up Lakeside.