Building momentum

WORLAND - The Worland High School girls swimming team put together another strong weekend with excellent performances in their Friday home meet, the Worland Triangular, and at the Powell Invite on Saturday.

During the Worland Triangular, Worland won 7 of 12 events that included a clean sweep of all three relay races.

"The girls had a fantastic meet (Friday)," said WHS girls swimming coach Mike Blissett. "We also closed the gap with Powell from the Cody meet, they only had us by 16 points."

The Lady Warriors scored 168 team points finishing second behind Powell, who logged 184, while Newcastle scored 43.

The winning relay teams were the Ella Stanek, Kylie Warren, Kristen Collingwood and Macy Trombley in the 200-yard medley; Kyra Klinghagen, Kaci Bentle, Juli Warren and Ellyse Russell in the 200 freestyle; Bentley, Stanek, Felicia Aguilar and Russell in the 400 relay.

The Lady Warriors also had swimmers add more automatic qualifiers for their season, Bentley in the 50 and 100 free, Juli Warren in the 200 and 500 free and Russell in the 200 individual medley.

Blissett was also impressed with his freshmen and their continued improvement.

"Our freshmen continue to amaze themselves as they swam some races for the first time. They're all strong girls and it's fun watching them realize their capabilities. I couldn't have been happier with their performance," said Blissett about the freshmen's performance Friday night.

After narrowing the gap with Powell in the last two meets, the Lady Warriors blitzed right past the Lady Panthers during the Powell Invite Saturday afternoon. Not only did Worland get by Powell they also hung with Lander and 4A Jackson, two of the top swimming programs in the state.

The Lady Warriors finished third with 231 points with Lander placing first, 278, and Jackson second, 234, while Powell was fourth at 192.

"I was incredibly happy with the girls' performance in Powell. We had some jaw-dropping time drops, some really exciting races, races that we dominated against some really tough competition," said Blissett about his team's performance in Powell.

Kylie Warren (100 breaststroke) and Felicia Aguilar (100 backstroke) both automatically qualified for the state meet, bringing the team total to over half the team who has qualified in at least one event for the 3A state meet Nov. 2-4 in Gillette.

"Now that the first one is out of the way, we'll try to get them both to qualify in another," said Blissett.

Blissett added, "The girls definitely showed up to swim hard on Saturday and it was tons of fun to watch them do so well."

This week the Lady Warriors travel to Newcastle for the Newcastle Invite starting at 10 a.m.

Full results from the Powell Invite are as follows.

200 Freestyle

5, Kaci Bentley, 2:19.91.

200 IM

1, Juli Warren, 2:22.67.

50 Freestyle

1, Ellyse Russell, 26.15.

2, Macy Trombley, 26.79.

Diving 1M

4, Kyra Klinghagen, 163.8.

100 Butterfly

3, Kristen Collingwood, 1:11.13.

100 Freestyle

1, Ellyse Russell, 56.35.

500 Freestyle

5, Kaci Bentley, 6:23.73.

200 Freestyle Relay

1, Worland (Macy Trombley, Kristen Collingwood, Juli Warren, Ellyse Russell), 1:47.38.

100 Backstroke

6, Kristen Collingwood, 1:10.4.

7, Ella Stanek, 1:12.27.

11, Felicia Aguilar, 1:13.89.

100 Breaststroke

2, Juli Warren, 1:12.96.

6, Kylie Warren, 1:21.87.

400 Freestyle Relay

1, Worland (Macy Trombley, Kristen Collingwood, Juli Warren, Ellyse Russell), 3:55.09.