Plateau swimmers quick in league championship
November 5, 2008
By Christopher Huber
The Mary Wayte Pool on Mercer Island buzzed with antsy swimmers and coaches from 18 schools as they crowded around the pool.
Eastlake’s Katelyn Haase competes in the 100 free Saturday at the KingCo 3A/4A Swimming Championships at the Mary Wayte Pool on Mercer Island. Photo by Christopher Hunber
Spectators filled the seats overlooking the water for the KingCo 3A and 4A league swimming championship Saturday.
The teams from Eastlake, Skyline and Issaquah high schools used the meet to try and shave off some time from certain races to qualify for next week’s district meet.
Mercer Island topped the meet scoreboard with 566 points total. Skyline came in 12th and Eastlake in 16th place.
And although Eastlake and Skyline, in particular, didn’t bring a few of their top swimmers — some had already qualified for district and state — both coaches were satisfied with their performances.
“This was actually a pretty fast meet,” Eastlake coach Andy Hay said.
In the individual events, senior Sarah Kinnear posted a state-qualifying time of 1 minute, 18.3 seconds in the 100-yard breaststroke.
Her time in the 200 IM, 2:34.9, was enough to get her to the district meet at Juanita. Ballard’s Annemarie Thayer won the race with an All-American time of 2:03.77.
Eastlake’s Katelyn Haase also performed well Saturday in her individual events.
She won her heat in the 100 free and qualified for state with a time of 56:54 seconds, which is about 1.5 seconds faster than her KingCo preliminary meet time posted last Thursday.
“With Sarah I completely expected it,” Hay said. “They’re both highly competitive and I’m glad they were able to get some good work done at this meet.”
Eastlake diver McKenzie Rands also advanced to the state meet.
Numerous Skyline swimmers came out of Saturday’s meet ready to tackle the district competition this week, despite not having standouts Andie Taylor and Nina Zook.
They had prior engagements and had already qualified for state, said Skyline coach Suzie Miller.
“Without having two of our top guns, I think we did pretty good,” Miller said. “Relays, just all three dominated. All dropped time drastically.”
Toni Scarcello had her best meet of the year, said Miller.
Although Juanita’s Emilee Kaufman won the 100 breaststroke with a time of 1:06.55, Scarcello set a new personal best of 1:15.21, knocking more than a second off her old record.
The Spartans’ 200 medley relay finished in 2:02.36, beating its prelim time by three seconds, but falling short of Redmond’s winning time of 1:15.16.
The girls also took about two seconds off their 200 free relay time when they swam it in 1:46.03. And Megan O’Keefe placed third overall in the 100-yard backstroke with a time of 1:03.18.
One of the highlights for Miller was Skyline’s performance in the 400 free relay. The girls dropped eight seconds off their prelim time and improved to a 4:03.98 finish in the event.
“We had some good swims and they all dropped time, but the 400 free relay … they came out today in a 4:03,” Miller said. “They just dropped eight seconds, but we knew that all four of those girls were capable of going 00 or 01. But they were fired up.”
Reporter Christopher Huber can be reached at 392-6434, ext. 242, or at chuber@isspress.com.
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EASTLAKE IS THE BOMB!!!! WOOT WOOT!!!