When you have an experienced veteran like Sean Martin to lead your team, it can help a great deal. Martin, who not only brought stability to a team that had not been in the middle of a meet with the intensity of the state meet, he saved his own personal best for last.
That effort gave the boys a 7th place finish at the meet held in Corvallis last weekend.
In the state meet, only twelve competitors race: the district champions and the next fastest times. In the preliminaries on Friday, the field is narrowed to half that, and those six come back for Saturday’s scoring finals.
The Sweet Home boys qualified all but two of their competitors. Larry Coulter finished 10th in the 100 meter backstroke and Jeff Stratman finished 8th in the 200 meter freestyle. But both Coulter and Stratman helped the team in other ways.
Stratman was not expected to achieve a berth in the 500 meter freestyle finals, but did soplacing sixth. The 200 meter medley relay was another place where the Huskies surprised the field, qualifying 5th. Their other relay team, the 400 meter freestyle, also made it to Saturday’s finals with a 4th place finishing. Of course, Martin was going to work in his events, besides being a member of both relays. He qualified 5th in the 200 meter freestyle and 3rd in the 500.
For the girls, the news wasn’t quite as good. Their best attempt was in their 400 meter relay, where they swam the second fastest time this year. But they came up just a second short and finished 7th. In two other events, they had 8th place finishes, Dani Birky in the 500 meter free style and Nichole Martin in the 200 meter individual medley.
On Saturday, the boys stayed true to form in both relays. Likewise, Stratman took 6th place in the 500 meter freestyle. But Sean Martin had conserved his energy on Friday and spent it all on Saturday, moving up from 5th to 3rd in the 200 meter freestyle in a time of 1:49.20 and then later advancing to second place in the 500 meter in a time of 4:59.94. Both times were good enough for third place in school history.
“I surprised myself, especially in the 200 meter,” said Martin, whose best event is the 500. “At first I thought there was a timing error.”
Martin credited his performances to the combination of shaving his head and that it was to be his last meet ever for Sweet Home High School. He thought the team lived up to its potential by holding or improving their positions in the finals.
“Everyone swam their hardest,” said Martin. “That’s all you can ask for.”
Coach Doug Peargin felt the same way.
“We did as well as we could do,” said Peargin, who was especially pleased with the effort of the relay teams. “There’s enough power at the state level, it’s easy to have one guy have a bad leg and not come back at all on Saturday.”
With the young team they had (only Sean Martin and Anne Helfrich were seniors), Peargin thinks the team is in position to do even better next year, though they need more swimmers.
“If these kids stick with it during the summer, I can see us being as competitive, if not more so next year in both girls and boys,” said Peargin.