Girls swim: Wolves take 22nd at state finals

The Lady Wolves swam to one of their best finishes in recent years at the state 2A finals. They placed 22nd on Nov. 11-12 at the King County Aquatic Center in Federal Way with seven swimmers participating in five events.

The 200 yard freestyle relay of Sydnee Linnane, Jasmine Itti, Anna Miehe and Sonja Govertsen had the best showing from the weekend, finishing 11th in the finals with a time of 1:47.52. They set a season best time in the finals beating their personal record of 1:49.89, and preliminaries time of 1:47.78.

The 200 medley of the same team took 13th in the finals swimming 2:03.81, more than two seconds better than their season best (2:06.23). They also improved on their preliminaries time of 2:04.74 and moved up one spot in the finals.

Govertsen, a freshman, made the finals in the 50 yard freestyle, too, placing 15th by swimming 26.59 seconds. She set a season best in the preliminaries finishing in 26.17 seconds.

The 400 free relay of Meguire Vander Velde, Joie Darminio, Isa Benitez and Itti finished 21st with a time of 4:15.66. They beat their season best 4:19.03 by more than three seconds.

Vander Velde, also a freshman, finished 24th in the 500 free swimming a 6:11.42. She and Govertsen were the only Wolves to qualify individually in events.

Head coach Anita Benitez said the team swam amazingly and saw swimmers cut times each day.

“I can’t wait until next year when we take more girls to swim at state,” she said.

Six of the seven state swimmers return next season except for Miehe, a German-exchange student.

Port Angeles’ swim team finished second overall with 260 points behind Liberty of Renton with 322 points.