Warrior swimmers impress at home meet

WORLAND - Before Saturday's Warriors Invite at the Worland Aquatic Center, Worland Warrior swimmers Zayne Cooper, Dalton Jeffries and Josiah Sanchez were the team's only individual automatic qualifiers for the state meet in Laramie on February 15-17. But after everything was said and done Saturday, Zach Cole is now the fourth Warrior to qualify for the state meet.

Cole qualified in the 100-yard backstroke by beating the 3A backstroke AQ time (1:13.0) with a 1:10.68 mark. Cole also came close to qualifying in the 50-yard freestyle but just missed the 26.25 mark by swimming a 26.32.

"It went a little better than expected," said WHS boys assistant/swimming coach Justin Howe about his swimmer's performance on Saturday. "We got a new AQ time in Zach Cole, we thought he'd qualify in the 50 free but actually qualified in the 100 back, and in the 50 free he was only .07 away from making it."

Another Warrior who came close to punching their ticket to the state meet was freshman diver Diamond Hill, who scored a 141.6 Saturday and finished fifth, and was just 3.4 points shy of the 145 qualifying mark.

"He did so much better and he's only three points away from qualifying. We'll probably add some higher DD [degree of difficulty] dives this week but Saturday is going to be an 11-dive meet, I'm excited about that. Not sure if he is just yet but he'll get there," said WHS boys head/diving coach Jeff Bishop.

Other notable performances from Saturday's home meet were sophomore swimmer Zayne Cooper finishing first in the 200-yard individual medley (2:12.26) and 100-yard freestyle (52.6); the 200-yard freestyle relay team (Jeffries, Cole, Sanchez, Cooper) finishing third with a time of (1:41.69).

Blake Mautz was selected by Bishop and Howe as the team's swimmer of the week for his hard work in the pool and cutting time in his 100-yard freestyle, "He's taken so much time off and his 100-yard was outstanding today, huge improvements at every meet," said Bishop.

With four meets remaining before the conference meet in Buffalo, Bishop and Howe have a good idea of which of their swimmers will excel in certain events and will tailor their training to fit those events.

"At this point in the season we'll start specializing our workouts because we can see which events they're best in and we'll get faster," said Howe.

This week the Warriors have three meets, first up will be today's Warrior Triangular at 5 p.m. with Cody and Powell, which is their final home meet of the season and senior night; Friday they travel to Cody for the Bronc Triangular against Cody and Powell; then Saturday finish their week in Lander for the Lander Invite.

For Worland's senior night, the Warriors will honor their two seniors Jeffries and Sanchez as they have given the program their all over the past four seasons and have been excellent role models for the younger swimmers.

"I've had them all four years and they've been hard workers. Dalton has been a leader since he was a freshman. Both of them have always worked hard and did what was asked of them. They've put in the time and it shows with their success," said Howe.

Added Bishop: "I've known both the boys since I had them in P.E. I really appreciate their leadership, they're very trustworthy kids, they keep the team going when we need them to. They're just fun to be around and have made the season enjoyable."

WARRIOR INVITE

200yd Medley Relay

4, Worland (Dalton Jeffries, Zayne Cooper, Josiah Sanchez, Zach Cole), 1:54.48.

200yd Individual Medley

1, Zayne Cooper, 2:12.26.

50yd Freestyle

6, Dalton Jeffries, 24.75.

Diving 1M

5, Diamond Hill, 141.60.

100yd Butterfly

5, Josiah Sanchez, 1:03.98.

100yd Freestyle

1, Zayne Cooper, 52.60.

200yd Freestyle

3, Worland (Dalton Jeffries, Zach Cole, Josiah Sanchez, Zanye Cooper), 1:41.69.

100yd Backstroke

6, Dalton Jeffries, 1:05.62.

9, Zach Cole, 1:10.68.

100yd Breaststroke

10, Josiah Sanchez, 1:16.64.

400yd Freestyle

7, Worland (Andrew Nelson, Diamond Hill, Blake Mautz, Gabe Durrant), 4:46.23.