FEDERAL WAY — Getting multiple top-8 finishes in individual and relay events, the Port Angeles girls swim team finished in a solid fifth place in the state 1A/2A swim and dive championships held this weekend at the King County Aquatic Center in Federal Way.
It’s the 10th straight meet that the Port Angeles girls have placed in the top 10 at the state swim and dive meet, and it was the team’s best finish since 2017, when the Roughriders came in third. In 2019, the Riders finished ninth and in 2020, there was no state meet due to the COVID pandemic.
The Riders picked up points in 10 out of the 12 finals and had finishers in the top eight in six events.
After the third event of the meet early Saturday, the Roughriders found themselves in fifth place and remained there for the rest of the day as Port Angeles swimmers kept picking up points in nearly every event.
Port Angeles finished with 150.5 points, well ahead of sixth-place Fife’s 106. Sammamish won the meet with 305 points. Anacortes came in second with 227, Enumclaw third with 183 and Pullman fourth with 180. Sequim and East Jefferson had swimmers at the meet. The Wolves came in 34th with eight points and East Jefferson 39th with four points.
Port Angeles’ best finish was in the 400 freestyle relay, coming in third place and picking up 32 points. The team of Harper McGuire, Yau Fu, Danika Asgeirsson and Mackezie DuBois finished with a time of 3 minutes, 52.6 seconds, bettering its preliminary time by two seconds.
In the same event, Sequim picked up all eight of its points. Sequim’s team of Annie Ellefson, Natalie Cross, Melia Nelson and Hi’ilei Robinson, swimming the B final, came in 13th with a time of 4:12.25.
The Port Angeles 200 freestyle relay team of Lizzy Shaw, Asgeirsson, McGuire and DuBois finished fifth and picked up 28 points in a time of 1:46.81, again over a second faster than its preliminary time.
In addition to being the anchor on the team’s top two relay teams, DuBois also had the Riders’ best individual performance, collecting 29 points all on her own. The senior, swimming in her final meet for Port Angeles, came in third in the 100 butterfly in a time of 1:00.14 for 16 points. She also finished sixth in the 200 individual medley in a time of 2:16.85 for 13 points.
The Riders’ 200 medley relay team of Brooke St. Luise, Rachel Cooper, Fu and Shaw came in eighth with a time of 2:03.73 to pick up another 22 points.
Asgeirsson finished eighth in the 100 backstroke in a time of 1:05.99 for 11 points. That was a personal-best time for her.
McGuire, swimming in the 200 freestyle B Final, won her race to finish ninth overall with a time of 2:07.55, picking up nine points. It was her best time of the year, said coach Sally Cole.
Sara Wilson, swimming in the 100 butterfly B final, came in 11th with a time of 1:04.81, collecting 5.5 points. She also swam in the 200 IM B final and came in 12th in a time of 2:25.46 for five points.
Fu came in 10th in the 500 butterfly in 5:42.66, bettering her preliminary time by four seconds and jumping two spots to earn seven points for the Riders. It was her best time of the year in this event.
East Jefferson’s Akeyla Berhenfeld picked up points for her team. She came in 13th in the 100 freestyle B final in a time of 1:00.07 for four points, bettering her 16th place preliminary finish.
The East Jefferson 400 freestyle team of Serena Hanbey-Perless, Tallulah Sebastian, Magdaline Ferland and Berhenfeld qualified with the 14th best time during preliminaries. But in the B final, they had a disqualification.
In the diving competition held Thursday, Port Angeles’ Gracie Possinger came in 15th with 208.10 points, collecting two team points for the Roughriders.
The Port Angeles team should be strong again next year as only DuBois, Wilson, Possinger and Cooper are graduating.
Other Port Angeles finishes that didn’t result in points include:
• McGuire, 500 freestyle, 17th.
• Lynzee Reid, 500 freestyle, 19th.
• Cooper, 100 breaststroke, 19th.
• Shaw, 50 freestyle, 19th.
• St. Luise, 200 freestyle, 20th.
• Asgeirsson, 200 freestyle, 22nd.
• Reid, diving, 22nd.
Other Sequim and East Jefferson finishes include:
• East Jefferson 200 freestyle (Berhenfeld, Hanbey-Perless, Juliette O’Hara, Sebastian), 17th.
• Sequim 200 medley relay team (Cross, Ellefson, Nelson, Robinson), 20th.
• Ellefson, Sequim, 200 freestyle, 23rd.
• Ellefson, Sequim, 100 backstroke, 24th.
• Ellefson, Sequim, 100 breaststroke, 24th.
