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Winners at state. Art/Photos by Apuron Photography
The Division III High School State Championship Swim Meet was held at the Phoenix Country Day Aquatic Center in Paradise Valley on Nov. 3-4. The Miners qualified 5 swimmers in individual events and 2 relay teams for the meet.
Preliminaries were held on Friday afternoon to determine who would advance to the Finals on Saturday afternoon. At State Swimmers are allowed to swim two individual events and 4 Miner swimmers qualified in two events.
Senior Raya Woods qualified in the 200 Freestyle as an alternate but was not chosen to swim the event.
Junior Gianna Sweeney had her two best swim of the season on Friday in the 100 Freestyle and 100 Breaststroke, both school records. Her School Record Time of 56.43 in the 100 Freestyle earned her a spot in the Championship Finals (top 8), while her School Record time of 1:12.46 in the 100 Breaststroke earned her a spot in the consolation finals (9-16th place) . In the Finals on Saturday Sweeney finished 8th in the 100 Freestyle and 9th in the 100 Breaststroke.
Junior Darien Apuron advanced to the consolation finals in the 100 Butterfly and finished 19th in Prelims in the 100 Backstroke. In Finals, Darien swam a School Record Time of 1:02.00 in the 100 Butterfly to finish 10th.
Junior Michael Primero-Predgo swam the 100 Freestyle in a time of 55.35 to a 20th place on Friday. He also swam a 1:08.42 in the 100 Backstroke for a 24th place finish.
Freshman Evan Apuron advanced to the Championship Finals in both the 200 Individual Medley (IM) and 100 Breaststroke with great swims on Friday. On Saturday, Evan swam a personal best time of 2:04.98 to finish 5th place in the 200 IM. In the 100 Breaststroke, a School Record Time of 1:03.83 earned him another 5th place finish in the Finals.
The Girls 400 Freestyle Relay team of Gianna Sweeney, Raya Woods, Freshman Star Chavez, and Darien Apuron swam a School Record time of 4:14.55 in Preliminaries on Friday to advance to the Consolation Finals. The Relay bettered the School Record again on Saturday with a time of 4:11.96 on the way to a 12th place finish.
In the team standings, the Miner Girls finished in the 21st place with 37 points and the Miner Boys finished in 19th place with 28 points.
Coach Alex Gort was delighted with the performance at the meet
“Miners had their best swims when it counted most. Five team records were bettered over the weekend. If you look at the list of teams that the Miners finished ahead of, there is a lot to be proud of,” Gort said.
For the swimmers at the meet, it was a great finish to the 2017 Miner Swimming Season.
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