2013 Girls’ State High School Swimming & Diving Recap

And then there were five! 

After a stellar Sections Meet, five girls made the trip to the University of MN Aquatic Center to participate in the pinnacle of their high school season. Qualifying were:

Sr. Co-Captain Janelle Mueller – One Meter Springboard Diving

Sr. Co-Captain Haley O’Neill – 100 Yard Freestyle and 400 Freestyle Relay

Sr. Co-Captain Reese Galewski – 100 Yard Butterfly and 400 Freestyle Relay

Sophomore Morgan Whyte - 400 Freestyle Relay

Sophomore Alexandra Arnold - 400 Freestyle Relay

First up was the Preliminaries of Springboard Diving on Monday. The diving order was done by random drawing and Janelle was 15^th out of a field of 32 divers, 4 from each of the 8 sections. She followed a friend and fellow Big 9 competitor from Rochester Mayo, which also finished ahead of her at Conference and Sections.  While each diver chooses their dive order over the three rounds (with certain restrictions as to how many required and optional dives are in each round), many times they perform the same dive as a their predecessor, which can be good or bad depending on how they do. In Janelle’s case, her predecessor was having a hot day, eventually finishing 7^th in prelims. That just means the bar gets raised a little bit over the norm, as you are being compared to the standard in the judges head, but also influenced by the dive they just saw and how they scored it. Janelle and the Section 1 divers had warm-up from 4-4:30PM and then sat until 5:30 when the boards were open to everyone right before competition. The line was long and they could only squeeze in a few warm-up dives each. Once competition started, it took about 10 – 12 minutes to get to Janelle’s first dive.  Janelle’s was a Forward 1 ½ SS in the pike position. After the Judges just having just seen a good one, Janelle lands hers a little heavy and scores 4, 4’, 4, 5, 4’, 4’, 4’ for 22.95 pts. She followed with her Forward 2 SS in tuck, her highest DD (degree of difficulty) dive. She landed it as well as she has all season scoring 5’,5,5,5’,6,5’,6 for 36.30 points. From there Janelle got out of rhythm and her Back Dive Straight landed short scoring 4’s and 5’s, Her Back 1 ½ SS  Tuck was mostly 3’s as was her Reverse 1 ½ SS Tuck. It took an average of 30 pts. per dive to make semifinals and Janelle ended up in 27^th overall. 

Tuesday’s swimming semi-finals had the girls waiting through the diving break to finally get to the first event with a Winona swimmer, Sr. Co-Captain Reese Galewski and the 100 Butterfly. Reese was seeded 23^rd out of 35 swimmers, the most qualifiers of any event in the Championships. Reese was in Heat 4 in the outside Lane, No. 8 the 8th seed in the heat. Reese took it out well, pretty much tied at the 25 and in 7^th by a few 10ths at the 50. She held pace well through the 75, gaining on the swimmer in Lane 7 and passing the swimmer in Lane 1. At the finish Reese was 7^th in the heat, 22^nd overall in prelims but improved on her seed time by 9 one hundredths which also meant she had set a new Winona High School 100 Butterfly record. She touched the wall in 58.98 bettering the mark set by eventual Division I swimmer Britta Benson set 13 years earlier!

Next up was Sr. Co-Captain Haley O’Neill in the 100 Freestyle. Haley was the 11^th seed going into prelim, on the strength of her amazing 1.2 second drop in the Finals of Sections. She was in Lane 6, sandwiched between the 5^th overall seed and the 17^th seed from the Team competition favorite Wayzata. Haley took the race out a well, the 5^th seed next to her setting the pace over the entire field. Haley turned at the 50 in 4^th overall. Headed into the 75 started to fall slightly off the pace, but held 5^th in her heat, eventually placing 14^th overall and qualifying for Finals Night Consolation Heat! She did well to hold on to what was left of her taper, slowing up slightly but still remaining competitive.

Last up, the last event of the evening, the Winhawks had qualified for the 4x100 Freestyle Relay. The Team of Whyte, Arnold, Galewski and O’Neill, (swimming in that order) were in Lane 1 of the second heat. They were seeded 20^th out of 22 teams that had qualified for the Championships. The Winhawks took the race out like they wanted the fastest time in Winhawk history; it would take 3 seconds of shaving to do it. Morgan touched under her Sections personal best split by tenths, Alex essentially matched her PB from Sections, and Reese too, nearly shaved 2 tenths from her Sections PB. Haley, having already bettered her PB at Sections by nearly a second had no more to give, certainly not 2 1/2 seconds. The Winhawks finished 7^th in their heat. That was good enough to improve on their seed finishing the Championships in 19^th place overall.

Wednesday finals night brought Sr. Co-Captain Haley O’Neill back to the pool for the Finals of the 100 Freestyle. Haley was in the Consolation Final and seeded 14^th swimming out of Lane 7 which made her the 6^th fastest swimmer in her heat. She took the race out hard, nearly 2 tenths of a second faster than her prelims 50 split, she was 3^rd to turn at the 50. In the final 50 she started to yield ground as a result of her pace and touched the wall 5^th, placing 13^th overall in the event!