3 local swimmers finish in top-10 at state meet
Three local swimmers recorded top-10 individual finishes Saturday at the AIA Swimming and Diving State Championships in Mesa, including two who did so in more than one event.
Gila Ridge sophomore Sydney Tunell (6th in 50 free, 7th in 100 back) and junior Talen Osborn (8th in 50 free, 10th in 100 free) were the local standouts at the Division II level, while Cibola senior Brock Jerpseth took eighth in the Division I 100 fly and 13th in the 50 free.
Gila Ridge sophomore Devon Wheeler (13th in 200 free, 15th in 500 free) and junior Ira Evans (14th in 200 IM) were the only other local swimmers to compete in Saturday’s finals individually, though the Hawks did have several relay teams that did so.
One of those relay teams — the boys 400 free (junior Lane Mellon, sophomore Miko Lamayo, Wheeler and Osborn) — provided arguably Gila Ridge’s highlight of the meet, placing sixth in a school-record time of 3:22.91.
Hawks coach Greg Brown was particularly impressed with Osborn, the anchor of that relay.
“Talen has been swimming (the 100 free) close to that 49-second range, and we had been hoping he would break through,” Brown said. “He swam a (49.58) in (individual) prelims on Friday, then (49.40) on Saturday. But then we got to the (400 free) relay, and the kid swam a 48, which is just incredible.”
Osborn also set a PR in the 50 free prelims with a 22.27 followed by his eighthplace finals time of 22.62.
Gila Ridge’s boys also were 12th in the medley relay and 16th in the 200 free relay, all of which added up to an 12th-place finish in the team standings with 65 points.
Girls-wise, Gila Ridge took 18th with 28.5 points — largely thanks to Tunell, who was the only local individual (boys or girls) to qualify for the “A” finals in two individual events.
Her tied-for-sixth finish in the 50 free came in 24.9, and her seventh-place finish in the 100 back came in 59.85. She was also a member of the Hawks’ 15thplace 200 medley relay, along with sophomore Zoe Carll and seniors Emma Butler and Mallytza IbarraDavila.
“Sixth and seventh, you can’t be upset with those two results,” Brown said of Tunell, whose highest previous state finish was eighth. “She gave it her best, and I think she’s putting herself into contention to be a top dog next year.”
In Division I, Jerpseth was the only local swimmer to qualify for Saturday’s finals. His two finishes earned Cibola 14.5 points, good for 20th place in the team standings.
For Jerpseth, this was his second straight year finishing in the top 10 for the 100 fly — last year, he took 10th in 53.11; in his eighth-place showing Saturday, he swam a personalbest 52-flat. He also set a PR in the 50 free in preliminaries on Friday (22.42) before coming in 13th with a 22.55 on Saturday.