Lehi Sports
Pioneer swimmers close out prep year at state meet
Beky Beaton and Ryann Anderegg / Lehi Free Press
The Lehi High School swim team earned ninth place in the girls events and 18th in the boys division of the 6A state championships concluding Saturday (Feb. 21) at Brigham Young University.
To no one’s surprise, Wasatch was the runaway winner on the girls side, earning 311 points to 257 for Skyridge and 251.5 for Lone Peak in the tight race for second place. The Pioneers earned 84 points.
Lehi had just a few qualifiers in boys events and finished with 16 points. Lone Peak won the division with 315 points followed by Mountain Ridge at 302 and American Fork at 247.
“Things went well,” said Coach Thor Labrum. “We have a lot of new girls and new people who came in and are building our program, so the team is growing and getting faster.
“We did have one unfortunate disqualification in the men’s relay but we know what we need to work on and the direction we are going,” he added. “The girls team did really well. We’ve had a few girls place and I know we will continue to get better.”
Here are the results for Lehi athletes who earned points towards the team total in their state events.
In the girls division:
- Senior Alyssa Soderquist captured the silver medal in the 100-yard butterfly, improving her time from the preliminaries and finishing within a second of the winner. In the 100-yard backstroke, she was edged by a tiny fraction of a second to end up with the bronze medal.
“It was a good race,” Soderquist said of her silver-medal performance. “I mean, obviously, I wish it kind of got higher, but I’m happy with (my time). It’s only a little bit off my PR so not too bad.
“I have sectionals in a couple weeks in North Dakota, so another try to get a personal record,” she continued. “I’m happy with the season, so I got the goals that I wanted to get.
“At regions I got a 57; that was more than I thought I would. I am very happy with the result. I’m going down to Utah Tech. I’m really excited because I think they’re going to add 50s,” Soderquist said.
“I’m going to hope we can get a 56 at sectionals and then we will see how colleges goes. I’m going to keep going,” the swimmer concluded.
- Senior Kalia Hasselbach claimed fifth place in the 100-yard backstroke and was 10th in the 100-yard butterfly.
- The Pioneers placed 13th in the 200-yard freestyle relay with junior Leah Sweeting, sophomore Brinley Daniels, sophomore Claire Cox and junior Ali Pendleton.
- The Lehi team came in eighth in the 400-yard freestyle relay with Hasselbach, Cox, Daniels and Soderquist. They reduced their preliminary time by about 1.5 seconds.
In the boys events:
- Senior Jeffrey Smith earned 14th place in the 200-yard freestyle and finished 16th in the 100-yard breaststroke.
- The 200-yard medley relay team came in 12th place with sophomore Liam Scott, Jeffrey Smith, sophomore Samuel Rivera and junior Asa Long.
- The 400-yard freestyle relay team of Scott, Long, freshman Colt Smith and Jeffrey Smith claimed 16th place.
In the separate Unified meet conducted at the same time, Pioneer sophomore Jonah Steele captured the bronze medal in the boys 50-yard freestyle event.
