Swimmers take 5th at SEC relays

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The Hastings boys swimming team placed right in the middle of the pack at the annual Suburban East Conference relays Thursday night in Stillwater.

Hastings placed fifth out of nine teams.

Stillwater won the meet with 120 points. Cretin-Derham Hall was second with 118 and Mounds View third with 116.

The Raiders had the smallest team at the meet, but the team was able to win one event and place third in another to rack up some big points. Hastings was just one point away from fourth place. East Ridge had 66 points and Hastings had 65.

“That’s about where we thought we would finish,” coach Gerry Rupp said. “I never really put a whole lot of emphasis on this first meet — it’s not a real accurate assessment of where teams lie. It’s still a fun meet nonetheless.”

Hastings won the 4x200 relay. The team was made up of Colby Smith, Brandon Underwood, Thoms Evenson and Elliot Wilcox.

Smith, Underwood and Evenson are all eighth-graders. Wilcox is a senior.

The same four swimmers teamed up for the third-place finish in the 4x100.

When Wilcox hit the water, he was more than a body length behind the Mounds View and Stillwater swimmers. He eliminated the deficit, but was touched-out by both swimmers at the end.

“He got touched out by them, but he just ate those other two guys up,” Rupp said. “I had two coaches and three different parents come up to me and say, ‘Who was that guy who anchored your relay?’ It was a pretty good swim.”

Those observations were backed up by the stopwatch. Wilcox had a split of 48.0 seconds for his 100-yard leg. That state meet qualifying standard for the 100 freestyle for 2009-10 is 48.84.

Results from the meet went like this:

400 medley relay — team of Underwood, Michael Rough, Smith and Evenson, fourth, 3:58.80.

200 freestyle relay — team of Wilcox, Hayden Schmitt, Steven Kimmes and Kenny Benson, eighth, 1:47.81; team of John Utecht, Matt Cater, Cole Tipler and Noah Schmidt, 13th, 2:12.66.

400 medley relay — team of Chris Humbert, Rough, Tony Ring and Hunter Sassor, sixth, 4:28.93.

200 butterfly relay — team of Schmitt, Ring, Humbert and Sassor, ninth, 2:01.23.

800 freestyle relay — team of Wilcox, Underwood, Evenson and Smith, 7:44.81.

200 backstroke relay — team of Humbert, Benson, Ring and Kimmes, fifth, 2:12.17; team of Matt Cater, Schmidt, Utecht and Tipler, 14th, 2:37.73.

200 backstroke relay — team of Sassor, Rough, Cater and Schmitt, seventh, 2:26.24.

400 freestyle relay — team of Wilcox, Underwood, Evenson and Smith, third, 2:39.72.

Tags: sports, swimming, hastings