Great Bend Post
All five Western Athletic Conference schools converged on Garden City Tuesday for a swim invitational. It turned into a competition between the host Lady Buffs and Great Bend. Garden City scored 400 points for the win, closely followed by the Lady Panthers with 379 points. Dodge City finished a distant third with 195 points.
The Lady Panthers dominated the first race of the day, taking the top-two spots in the 200-yard medley relay. The team of Emilee Hall, Ava Gregg, Elly Somers, and Kamry Johns cruised to the win in 2:11.07. The squad of Reggie Huslig, Braylee Carper, Alyvia Mingenback, and Sydney Kruckenberg finished second in 2:26.96, still six seconds ahead of the third-place team from Hays.
Josephine Mazouch won the 200-yard freestyle by better than three seconds in 2:24.60, 11 seconds off a state consideration time. Hall won the 50-yard freestyle by 0.09 seconds in 28.35 to miss state qualification by 2.06 seconds.
Great Bend's distance swimmers were strong in the 500-yard free. Katelyn Mermis beat out a pair of teammates for the gold in 6:48.64. Mazourch picked up the silver in 6:49.66, and Clarise Snapp swam third in 7:05.04.
The Lady Panthers took three of the top-five spots in the 100-yard butterfly. Somers led all swimmers by seven seconds in 1:10.82 to miss the consideration time by two seconds. Mingenback swam third in 1:25.88, and Huslig placed fifth in 1:27.62.
One of the best races came late in the day. Great Bend has already qualified its 200-yard free relay to state. The team of Hall, Somers, Johns, and Mazouch swam second in 1:53.94, just three-quarters of a second behind the winners from Garden City. The third-place team finished 10 seconds later.
The swimmers take a week off before returning to competition next Friday at Salina South.