Outlaws strong in District swim meet

Lydia Bartlett won two events and Osmond Bates captured one at the Special District 3 Swimming Championships held Friday and Saturday, February 14-15 at South Albany High School. The victories earned automatic qualification to the OSAA State Swimming Championships.

A total of 13 teams from the 1A/2A/3A/4A classification that comprise Special District 3, which is one of the four special districts in Oregon for swimming, competed for the District team titles as well as berths to state. Those teams include 4A schools Cascade, Junction City, Marist, North Marion, Philomath, Stayton, Sweet Home and Sisters. Amity, Salem Academy, and Blanchet Catholic, come from the 3A ranks, and Kennedy and Kings Valley Charter from the 2A and 1A classification respectively.

The first-place winner in each individual and relay event at each District meet automatically qualified for the OSAA’s State Championships. Any remaining open lanes are filled by the next fastest time from the finals of the four special districts. Announcements for those qualifiers were not available by press time.

Bartlett won the 500-yard freestyle in convincing fashion, clocking 5:06.31, a full 27 seconds ahead of the runner-up. She will enter the state meet as one of the top contenders in the event.

In contrast, her victory in the 200-yard freestyle was a real nail-biter as she held off Megan Hager of Sweet Home by just .3 seconds to win in 1:52.26.

Bates’ surprise victory in the 100-yard breaststroke came as a result of a two-second personal best in the prelims on Friday, followed by another two-second improvement in the final.

“He actually pulled away from the rest of the field in the last 25 meters to win by nearly a full second,” said an ecstatic Coach Bryn Singleton.

His time was 1:10.64.

Beyond the state qualifiers, Singleton came away from the meet amazed at how well her team-members peaked for District.

“Every swimmer seriously swam better than I have ever seen,” she said. “The kids really dug deep and were so tough.”

Sisters boys’ 200-yard freestyle relay of Sam Mayes, Austen Heuberger, Clayten Heuberger and Bates took second place in 1:40.15. The same quartet also swam a season best in the 400 meter freestyle relay with a time of 3:43.44, which was nearly 20 seconds faster than their seed time entering the meet.

“That was simply amazing,” said Singleton.

Sam Mayes took third as an individual in the 100-yard freestyle in 55.25, and Austen Heuberger nabbed fourth place in the 200-yard freestyle in a time of 2:04.86.

For the girls, Bartlett, Iris Diez, May Root, and Laura Clem earned third place in the 200-yard freestyle relay. Clem also got sixth place in the 100-yard butterfly in 1:12.68.

Sweet Home won the team title with 297 points over second-place Marist Catholic, which finished with 200. Sisters finished with a total of 90 for eighth place.

Marist Catholic eked out a two-point win over Salem Academy among boys teams with 241 points to the Crusaders’ 239. Sisters placed a solid fourth with 132 points.

Two boys relay teams and the girls relay team qualified by time to go to state, and Austen Heuberger qualified in the 200-yard freestyle.

The OSAA State Championships for all classifications are set for February 21-22 at Tualatin Hills Aquatic Center in Beaverton.