Great Bend Post Sports
The Panther swimmers capped a busy week in the waters of Campus High School in Haysville Thursday evening. Winfield scored 548 points to win the 8-team meet, followed by the host Colts with 476 points. Great Bend scored 170 points for fifth overall, just 22 points behind fourth-place Liberal.
The 200 medley relay team of Andrew McQuade, Matthew Williams, Kasey Kennedy, and Adam Hall placed fourth in 2:05.13, six seconds off a state consideration time and eight seconds off bronze-medal pace. Winfield blew away the state qualifying time by five seconds for the win. The 200 freestyle relay squad of Hall, McQuade, Kennedy, and Joshua Sharpe also placed fourth in 1:47.89, missing state consideration by less than four seconds and coming up just 0.29 seconds short of the bronze.
Individually, Kennedy missed the 100 free bronze by half a second in 56.29. That time was 1.23 seconds off state consideration. Hall finished sixth in the 50 free in 25.44, less that a second from state consideration and 1.26 seconds behind the bronze. Hall placed ninth in the 100 free in 58.62.
Kale Mermis placed 10th in the 100 butterfly in 1:32.71. He finished 11th in the 200 free in 2:35.21, followed by McQuade in 12th with a time of 2:37.74. Williams finished ninth in the 500 free in 7:03.21, 53 seconds from the bronze. He placed 11th in the 200 IM in 2:50.23 to miss the bronze by 30 seconds. McQuade finished 11th in the 100 back in 1:19.25 to miss the bronze by 15 seconds. Jordan Sander placed 13th in the 100 breast in 1:40.41.
Great Bend's 400 freestyle relay team of Sharpe, Mermis, Williams, and Sander finished eighth in 4:42.45. The top three teams all cracked 3:50, with Winfield and Campus coming in well under state qualification time of 3:46.
Great Bend will host the Western Athletic Conference Championships on Thursday, Feb. 8 at Barton Community College.