The swim and dive state championships brought more hardware back to Bellevue in the form of individual trophies and yet another 4A team scoring title for Newport, which repeated its feat from last year while adding a pair of relay championships in the process.
The Knights, which won the team title last year despite no individual or relay championships, brought home the championship in the 200 yard free relay behind senior Emily Waddell, sophomore Jenny Huo, senior Maggie Pana and senior Lorea Gwo, who dropped nearly two full seconds off their preliminary time to swim one minute, 39.26 seconds in the finals and edge out Gig Harbor by nine one-hundredths of a second.
They picked up another title in the 400 free relay, but without quite as much drama at the wall, as Gwo, Pana, Maddie Rainey and Elisa Fang won by more than two seconds in a time of 3:34.00 to capture the title in front of Richland.
Rainey, Huo, Fang and Waddell just missed making it three relay titles, finishing second in the 200 medley relay in 1:49.75.
Pana finished fifth in the 200 free in 1:55.91 and a second place finish in the 500 free, swimming 5:10.45.
Fang and Gwo were fourth and sixth respectively in the 50 free for Newport, and Emily Waddell also swam the prelims. Gwo picked up a third place finish in the 100 fly in 57.20 and Fang was fourth in the 100 backstroke in 57.10 to earn a medal.
Huo earned a fourth place finish in the 200 individual medley, swimming 2:09.91. Katie Groesbeck made the preliminary field in the event for the Knights as well.
Junior Kiera Watson was in the preliminary field for the 200 free and 500 free for the Knights.
Rainey and Waddel both made the prelims of the 100 free as well.
Sammamish gets top-10 performances in 2A
The Totems picked up their best finish of the meet in the 200 free relay, earning a seventh-place finish with the quartet of Blaire Ziegan, Nicole Wen, Janae Gallant and Maddie Dohm finishing in 1:49.66 in the finals. Leah Topp and Gillian Matthes replaced Gallant and Dohm in the 400 free relay, with Sammamish was third in the B Final.
Sophomore diver McKenna Troje earned a top-10 finish in the 2A competition, finishing with a total score of 283.10, significantly bettering her preliminary mark of 200.45. Teammate Nakita Hesketh was 12th with a score of 255.60, adding more than 60 points to her preliminary round total.
Matthes, a junior, swam the prelims in the 20 free, finishing in 2:12.79, and made the B Final of the 100 breast, finishing second in the consolation heat. Teammate Aliza Ben-Varon was in the field for the prelims of the event.
Ziegan was in the preliminary field for the 50 free and swam a 27.57 for the Totems, which ended the meet in 17th place in the team scoring.
