Great Bend Post Sports
The Lady Panther swim team capped a successful season with a 23rd-place finish at the Class 5-1A State Swimming and Diving Championships Friday and Saturday in Lenexa. Great Bend landed several swimmers in the consolation finals.
The 200-yard free relay team of junior Josephine Mazouch, freshman Meredith Mazouch, and seniors Sydney Kruckenberg and Emily Hall placed 13th. The team placed 15th in the prelims in 1:51:56, then cut it to 1:49.83 in the consolation finals. Blue Valley Southwest just missed a state meet record to win the gold by more than three seconds in 1:39.89.
Hall placed 11th in the 100 back. Swam 14th in the prelims with a time of 1:06.05, then swam a season-best 1:05.24 in the consolation finals to move into 11th. Andover junior Mari Griffin missed a state meet record by 0.14 seconds for the gold by more than three seconds in 55.29.
The Lady Panther 400 free relay team of Kruckenberg, Hall, Josephine Mazouch, and Darcy Feist placed 12th. The girls swam a 4:06.52 to finish 12th in the prelims. Despite a big cut to 4:03.99 in the consolation finals, Great Bend held that 12th position. Blue Valley Southwest beat the field by more than two seconds in 3:38.86 for the title.
Josephine Mazouch swam a 58.97 in the 100 free to take the 16th and final spot in the consolation finals. She cut that time to 58.75 in that final race to move up to 15th. McPherson senior Danica Brunk won the race by 0.4 seconds in 52.77.
Josephine Mazouch stayed under 27 seconds in the 50 free prelims but her time of 26.83 was half a second behind the final consolation qualifier. She finished 19th overall. Hillsboro sophomore Lauryn Vogt tied a 26-year-old state meet record for the win in 23.77. Hays junior Izabel Schmidt swam second in 24.41.
Hall placed 20th in the 100 fly. Her time of 1:05.68 was three quarters of a second behind the last consolation finals time. Vogt won that race by more than two seconds in 56.02.
Great Bend opened its state swim meet with a 21st-place finish in the 200 medley relay. The team of Kruckenberg, Feist, Meredith Mazouch, and Clarise Snapp entered with a seed time of 2:07.03 but dropped to 2:14.30 in the prelims. A time of 2:04.08 was needed to make the consolation finals, and a 2:00.90 was good enough for the final eight teams. Andover took the title by better than four seconds in 1:52.09.
The Lady Panthers finished with 26 points to place 23rd as a team. Blue Valley Southwest dominated the field with 253 points, followed by Topeka Seaman in second with 147 points, and Lansing with 138.5 points in third.