FEDERAL WAY — Both the Port Angeles and Sequim swim teams finished in the top 18 at state as the Roughriders’ Lynzee Reid and Wolves’ Ava Shinkle had outstanding performances at the state 2A girls swim meet held this weekend at the King County Aquatic Center.
Port Angeles finished 12th in the state with 45 points while Sequim was 18th with 34. Bainbridge won the state championship handily with 411.5 points. There were 39 teams that had points at the state meet.
The best individual performance was by Port Angeles’ Reid, who finished third in the state in diving. She finished with 218.15 points, just edging Jazzy Nelson of Squalicum, who had 217.15. Jill Thomas of Marysville-Pilchuck won the state championship with 245.75 points.
Reid was third after the preliminaries and held her position though Nelson closed the gap in the finals. Only four girls in the state had more than 192 points. Reid’s performance earned Port Angeles 16 points.
Shinkle, meanwhile, finished fifth in the 200-yard individual medley with a time of 2 minutes, 18.72 second, bettering her prelim time by more than a second. Her race earned the Sequim team 14 points. Shinkle added a ninth-place finish in the 100 butterfly in 1:03.10, again more than 1 second faster than her prelim time, to earn Sequim another nine points for 23 total points.
Sequim’s Annie Ellefson finished eighth in the 100 breaststroke in a time of 1:13.34, earning 11 points for the Wolves.
All three of Port Angeles’ relay teams made it to the finals and earned points. The Roughriders’ 200-yard medley relay team of Reid, Mia Francis, Chloe Kay-Sanders and Lizzy Shaw, came in 12th in a time of 2:07.74 to earn 10 points.
The 400 freestyle relay team of Anaya Tejeda, Shaw, Reid and Amayah Nelson came in 13th in a time of 4:14.02 to earn another eight points and Port Angeles’ 200 freestyle relay team of Tejeda, Shaw, Reid and Nelson also finished 13th in a time of 1:54.56, earning another eight points. All told, Reid played a part in gaining 32 points for the Roughriders combining her individual and relay performances.
The Riders’ Nelson came in 15th in the 200 freestyle in 2:11.92 and was 16th in the 500 freestyle in 6:02.22, collecting another three points for her team.
Sequim’s 200 medley relay team of Naomi Beglyabok, Ellefson, Shinkle and Holland Sol was 18th in the preliminaries in a time of 2:12.03 and Ellefson finished 19th in the 100 freestyle prelims in 1:01.04. They just missed out on making the finals.
The Sequim girls swim team at the state meet. From left, Emma Rhodes, Naomi Beglyakov, Holland Sol, Annie Ellefson, Ava Shinkle and Violet Phillips. (Cherise Feser)
