Scott Swanson
Thanks to some clutch performances, especially in the relays, the Sweet Home boys and girls swim teams both came home with trophies from the OSAA 4A/3A/2A/1A State Swimming Championships Saturday.
The boys tied with Newport for third place while the girls were fourth.
It was a historic day, said Coach Doug Peargin, who is in his 36th season with the Huskies.
“This is the first girls trophy, not to mention the double, that we’ve ever had,” Peargin said. “I sat in my room afterwards and I couldn’t even read the results, my eyes were so watery. Every swim we had on Saturday was a lifetime best.”
North Bend won the boys title with 45 points, followed by Cottage Grove (43), Sweet Home and Newport (41) and Corbett/Corbett Charter (40).
In the girls competition, Phoenix swam away with the title, scoring 57 points to second-place Henley’s 35, followed by Taft (34), Sweet Home (27) Hidden Valley (26) and Philomath (22),
The Sweet Home boys got an individual championship in the 200 Individual Medley from Zachary Pearce and the 200 Freestyle Relay team posted what was essentially an upset victory, setting a school record of 1:32.4 in the process.
The girls had two individual champions, sophomore Naomi Gunselman in the 100 Backstroke (1:03.34, the third-fastest in school history) and Sami Webb in the 500 Freestyle (5:36.36), and got a third-place finish from the 400 Freestyle Relay team. Gunselman also took second in the 100 Butterfly, swimming the second-fastest time in school history – 1:00.49.
Gunselman said she could see she was trailing Gabe Deen of Phoenix at the 50-yard turn in the backstroke and was feeling a little fatigued at that point before she was able to power past Deen down the home stretch.
“I could see her feet at my head,” she said. “I kind of wriggled a little to loosen up. I knew I had to have a big finish at the end. That’s what I kind of did.”
The 500 freestyle races prelims, which at most meets do not produce high drama, proved otherwise at state this year. Both involved Sweet Home swimmers. In the second girls preliminary Friday, Blanchet’s Elizabeth Bartholomew led the race from the start until Webb made a move with 75 yards to go, pushing Bartholomew down the home stretch to touch the wall in 5:44.31, one-hundredth of a second behind Bartholomew, to set up a finals showdown.
Except, Bartholomew fell back in the finals and it was Webb and Logan Gomez of La Grande and Alyse Darnall of Phoenix in a close battle for the lead for most of the race. Webb said she knew it was time to go with about 150 yards left. She said her former club coach, Junia Calhoon, had told her to get off the walls harder on her turns.
“Junia told me I needed to work on my kick-outs and I thought about that and did that,” she said. “I was just thinking about my turns. When I got to the 15th lap I knew I had it.”
Webb was slow coming off the wall in the 200 Individual Medley preliminary the day before and just barely missed the final, Peargin said. He said Webb had a different approach Saturday.
“I told her Bartholomew would break if you’re ahead of her at 300,” he said.
“Sami stayed ahead of her and she slipped to fourth. Sami thought and she was dangerous.”
Webb’s win was the first ever at state in that event by a Sweet Home girl, Peargin said. It was also the fourth-fastest performance in school history.
Pearce came from behind to win the 200 Individual Medley, for the second year in a row, in 1:58.34 – three-hundredths of a second ahead of Cottage Grove’s Gavin Nash and with longtime district rival Tony Vickery of Junction City six-tenths of a second back in third. His victory was his first win in the event at state, after finishing second to teammate Jayce Calhoon last year, and the third-fastest time in school history.
Pearce said he was feeling fatigued early in the 200 IM and “was just trying not to die.”
“I poured it on as hard as I could,” he said. “I gave it everything I had. He really wanted that bad. (Nash) got a lot faster than last year. I wasn’t expecting him to go that fast.”
Pearce also placed second to North Bend’s Kevin Waller in the 500. The boys preliminary on Friday set the stage for a showdown between Pearce and Waller, after Pearce set a new division record in the first prelim heat in 4:42.99 in the second heat, second (to Jayce Calhoon) in school history, and then Waller, a junior who is built similar to Olympics star Michael Phelps, demolished it with a finish of 4:35.26.
Gravy Gunselman was fourth in the 100 Butterfly in 54.4, fourth-best all-time for Sweet Home, and third in the 100 Backstroke, in 56.5, fifth in school history.
Like the district titles they won the week before, it was a matter of taking an extra place here and there for the Huskies