A handful of local swimmers earned spots at the state championship with their performance this past weekend at the West Central District Championship meet at Rogers High.
In the team race, Kentridge finished ninth and Kentlake finished 10th, while Gig Harbor ran away with the district title with 211.5 points.
Tanner Keeling-Garcia and Erik Fulmer from Kentlake placed individually while the Falcons 400-yard relay team of Keeling-Garcia, Fulmer, David Dougherty and Kyle Koon, earned a spot at state by posting a time of 3 minutes, 28.57 seconds in the consolation final, bumping out Decatur, which had finished sixth in the championship final with a time of 3:31.17.
The top six spots in each event, that is the six fastest times, earned a place at the 4A boys swim and dive state championships this Friday and Saturday at the King County Aquatic Center in Federal Way.
Keeling-Garcia had already posted state qualifying times in the 100 yard breast stroke, clocking in at 1:02.1, a 55.7 in the 100 backstroke and the 200 yard freestyle in 1:48.88 during the regular season.
He won the consolation final of the 100 butterfly with a state qualifying time of 55.19.
Fulmer earned a state qualifying time of 57.08 in the 100 backstroke. He also finished sixth in the championship final of the 200 individual medley but two swimmers — Joel Pryor of Curtis and Tanner Kuerstermeyer of Emerald Ridge — in the consolation heat swam faster and bumped him out.
He may, however, still represent Kentlake in the event at state if his time is fast enough. The WIAA takes the top two or three swimmers from each event in the other district meets throughout the state but that leaves eight other spots (of the 24 available in the preliminary heats) to be filled through allocation, which gives spots to swimmers with the fastest non-qualifying times at their respective district meets.
That means Fulmer, a freshman, may still make the cut for state. He’ll find out after the rest of the district meets are held this weekend.
Tahoma freshman Stephen Shin earned his first shot at state with an automatic time of 55.40 in the 100 fly. He took fourth in the championship final.
The Bears 200 medley relay team of Shin, Nick Castagna, Michael Cox and Mitch Halbert finished in ninth place with a time of 1:49.07.
Logan Ryan, a senior from Kentwood, will be the Conquerors lone representative at the state meet this year.
Matt Bailey, a junior from Kent-Meridian, won the 500 free consolation heat but his time was faster than the fifth and sixth place swimmers in the championship final, so he earned a spot at state with a 5:08.77.
Kentridge’s 200 free relay team of Bryan Lam, Trent Davis, Tim Berquist and Kyle Wilson also earned a seed into the state meet with a time of 1:33.09 after finishing fourth in the championship final.
