Great Bend Post Sports
By now the competition is familiar. That does not make them any slower in the water. The Great Bend High School swimmers closed out the 2024 portion of the schedule Thursday in Garden City. With a smaller squad, the Panthers finished fourth out of five teams with 146 points. Garden City won the meet with 427 points, followed by Hutchinson with 310.5 points, and Dodge City with 184.5 points.
Kale Mermis collected a silver medal in the 200 free in 2:39.84, edging out the third-place finisher by less than a second but finishing 35 seconds behind the winner. Tyler Scheuerman rounded out the field in 10th with a time of 3:30.59. Mermis finished fifth in the 500 free in 7:28.54 to miss the bronze by 70 seconds. Mark Sperlein placed second in the 100 fly in 1:20.99, staving off the bronze by four seconds and missing the gold by nine seconds.
The 200 free relay team of Mermis, Sperlein, Matthew Williams, and Randy Weber finished third in a dead heat against Liberal in 2:05.72. Hutchinson won the race in 1:48. The 200 medley relay of Mermis, Sperlein, Williams, and Logan Urban placed fourth in 2:26.35 to miss the bronze by 14 seconds.
Sperlein placed fourth in the 200 IM in 2:51.45 to miss the bronze by five seconds. Williams finished fourth in the 50 free in 28.57, nearly two seconds behind the bronze. Williams had another fourth-place finish in the 100 breast in 1:25.36 to miss the bronze by three seconds. Weber finished eighth in 32.68. AJ Schartz placed 10th in the 100 free in 1:21.50 to miss the bronze by 18 seconds. Leo Bashor finished 13th in 1:30.08, and Scheuerman hit the wall in 1:39.83 for 14th.
Great Bend's 400 free relay of Schartz, Bashor, Scheuerman, and Weber swam eighth in 5:38.99, 75 seconds behind third-place Dodge City.