Lehi Sports
Pioneer girls 3rd, swimmers collect medals at state meet
The Lehi girls swim team didn’t win any gold medals in the school’s first-ever 6A state swim meet concluding Saturday (Feb. 24) at BYU, but the Pioneers had enough high finishes to earn a strong third place with 183 points.
Juggernaut Lone Peak pocketed a fourth-consecutive title with 480 points, and Skyridge came in second with 271.5 points. American Fork finished fourth with 144 points.
The Lehi girls got the meet off to a good start by edging the Cavemen for the bronze medal in the very first event, the 200-yard medley relay. The squad included sophomore Alyssa Soderquist, senior Addi Zobrist, sophomore Kalia Hasselbachand senior Liesel Ford.
The Pioneers also won bronze in the 200-yard freestyle relay, moving up three spots by dropping almost two seconds fromtheir time in the preliminaries with Ford, senior Jana Patlan, junior Josselyn Schiess and Zobrist.
Zobrist captured the bronze in the 100-yard breaststroke as well and was eighth in the 50-yard freestyle.
Other medals claimed included these finishes by Hasselbach, who earned fifth place in the 100-yard butterfly and the 100-yard backstroke, and Soderquist, who came in sixth in the 200-yard individual medley and was eighth in the 100-yard backstroke.
Others who contributed to the girls point totals included Lehi’s squad of Hasselbach, Patlan, Schiess and Soderquist, who garnered fifth place in the 400-yard freestyle relay. Senior Rilynn Smith also contributed by finishing ninth in the 500-yard freestyle and 14th in the 200-yard freestyle.
Point-earners in the boys events included sophomore Jeffrey Smith, senior Conner Valley, senior Jence Zimmerman and junior Dane Dixon combining for 16th place in the 200-yard freestyle relay, while Smith, Dixon, Valley and junior Kerby Payden got 16th place in the 400-yard freestyle relay.
“I thought we had a great turnout at State,” said Coach Alec Huff. “I was super excited for the way the girls finished. Third place is the best finish for our girls in program history.
“A couple of races that really stood out to me was the group of girls that swam the 200 free relay moving from 11th going into the meet and placing third with a medal,” the coach continued.
“Alyssa Soderquist had an overall great meet with huge time drops in all of her races, coming back to finals in both of her individual events and swimming up in both events,” he said. “Addi Zobrist getting third in the 100 breaststroke was a great race as well.
“It was awesome to see some boys relays make it back in the top 16 too,” Huff said. “I couldn’t have asked for a better turnout for the team. I’m so proud of all of them.”
