UPDATED Girls swimming: SHS relays, freshman earn state berths
Published 1:30 am Wednesday, November 9, 2022
Freshman Annie Ellefson earned two state meet berths, and she’ll join three teammates in a pair of relay teams in the prep finals in Federal Way this week.
Sequim’s girls swimmers punched their tickets to the state meet with a top-six finish in the 400 free relay at the West Central District meet, held Nov. 4-5 in Auburn.
The Wolves then added three more state berths, including both of Ellefson’s qualifying swims, when wildcards were announced earlier this week.
The Wolves’ 400 free relay team – including Ellefson, junior Natalie Cross, sophomore Melia Nelson and anchor Hi’ilei Robinson, a senior — placed first in the B final in 4:17.20, but a disqualification in the A final moved Sequim into sixth place and an automatic state berth.
That Sequim relay is coming in to the state meet seeded No. 11 with a few other teams within .5 seconds of its seed time, SHS coach Britt Hemphill said, so the Wolves have a great shot at advancing out of the preliminaries.
Also earning a state berth is Sequim’s 200 medley relay team – Cross (backstroke), Ellefson (breaststroke), Nelson (butterfly) and Robinson (freestyle) — which placed eighth overall at districts in 2:11.89.
Ellefson will compete at state in both 100 breaststroke and 200 free after top-10 swims at districts. She was 1oth in the 100 breaststroke with a 1:19.39 mark and also finished 10th overall in the 200 free, finishing in 2:15.69 and moving up four spots from her preliminary finish.
Cross was 15th in the 100 breaststroke (2:27.74). She also placed 10th in the 500 free, finishing in 6:24.47.
Nelson placed 12th overall in the 100 butterfly in 1:14.52 and 16th in the 100 breaststroke (1:25.37).
Robinson took 13th overall in the 50 free, finishing in 28.64. She also placed 15th overall in the 100 free (1:02.16).
As a team, Sequim placed 12th out of 16 qualifying teams at the district meet with 35 team points. Sammamish was first (277), followed by Enumclaw (183) , Port Angeles (181) and North Kitsap (113).
The state 2A meet is set for Nov. 10-12 in Federal Way.
