BY JIM MISUNAS
jmisunas@gbtribune.com
After several runner-up finishes against McPherson and Wichita Classical, the Great Bend 200-freestyle relay came through with a gold medal at Tuesday's swimming quad.
The Panthers captured first place in the 200 freestyle relay (1:36.71) with Brody Feist, Ellis Long, Tyler Stein and Matthew Huslig competing.
"We needed to win that relay. We kept getting out-touched at the finish," said Great Bend coach Kari Carper. "We got things going back in our direction. We have some work to do on our finishes. We got out-touched a lot at the finish before WAC next week."
McPherson scored 428 points and Great Bend placed second with 375 points.
"McPherson had fast sprinters returning from state. I was happy to see how well our swimmers competed. We swam a little tired, but that's expected at this time of year."
Carper said Brody Feist enjoyed a highlight on a relay.
"Brody Feist had a really good 50-yard split on the 200-medley relay. He's close for state consideration time. I was excited to see him go 23 in the medley relay. He just needs to do on his 50."
Carper said all the swimmers competed at a high level. The Panthers will host the Western Athletic swimming meet Feb. 11.
The other Panther relays finished runner-up — the 200 medley relay (1:48.96) with Tyler Stein, Ellis Long, Matthew Huslig and Brody Feist; the 400 freestyle relay (4:10.23) with Beau Burkhart, Will Linenberger, Jacob Kennedy and Kasey Kennedy.
Also finishing runner-up were Tyler Stein, 100 backstroke; 1:01.2; 100 breaststroke, Ellis Long, 1:10.13; 200 freestyle Matthew Huslig, 1:55.47; 100 freestyle, Brody Feist, 54.44 and 500 freestyle, Matthew Huslig, 5:33.34.
GREAT BEND QUAD
TEAM SCORES—1—McPherson 428; 2—Great Bend 375; 3—Liberal 267; 4—Wichita Classical 68
200 medley relay—1–McPherson, 1:48.54; 2–GB A, 1:48.96 (Tyler Stein, Ellis Long, Matthew Huslig, Brody Feist); 3—GB B, 2:02.3 (Trevor Delong, Will Linenberger, Kasey Kennedy, Jacob Kennedy)
200 freestyle relay—1—GB A, 1:36.71 (Brody Feist, Ellis Long, Tyler Stein, Matthew Huslig); 5—GB B, 2:02.69 (Caden Bieker, Ty Boone, Beau Burkhart, Ian Jennings)
400 freestyle relay—1—McPherson, 3:37.09; 2—GB A, 4:10.23 (Beau Burkhart, Will Linenberger, Jacob Kennedy, Kasey Kennedy); 5—GB B, 4:41.72 (Cole Sanders, Caden Bieker, Ian Jennings, Trevor DeLong)
50 free—1—Powers, Mc, 23.32; 4—Feist, 24.17; 5—Stein, 24.43; 6—Kasey Kennedy, 26.26; Burkhart, 26.88; Cross, 33.24; Sharpe, 33.56
100 butterfly—1—Wurm, Mc, 1:01.91; 3—Kasey Kennedy, 1:04.06; 6—Burkhart, 1:28.99
100 freestyle—1—Sautter, Liberal, 51.91; 2—Feist, 54.44; 4—Long, GB, 56.72; 7—Bieker, 1:07.94
200 freestyle—1—Vanderhoof, Mc, 1:55.41; 2—Huslig, 1:55.47; 3—DeLong, 2:32.81; 5—Sanders, 2:37.85; 7—Bieker, 2:42.9; Ty Boone, 2:51.92
200 IM—1—Achilles, Mc, 2:14.48; 3—Jacob Kennedy, 2:32.55; 4—Linenberger, 2:40.55; Ian Jennings, 3:20.6
100 backstroke—1—Powers, Mc, 1:00.19; 2—Stein, 1:01.2; 4—Boone, 1;18.57; 8—Jennings, 1:40.22; Cross, 1:37.26; Sharpe, 2:10.5
100 breaststroke—1—Chan, Classical, 1:07.57; 2—Long, 1:10.13; 5—Jacob Kennedy, 1:17.81; 6—Linenberger, 1:23.02
200 freestyle—1—Chappel, GC, 1:53.57; 2—Stein, 2:03.52; 3—Feist, 2:07.99; 4—Kasey Kennedy, 2:16.53; DeLong, 2:42.37; Bieker, 2:51.27; Cross, 3:09.15; Sharpe, 3:11.81; Medlock, 3:55.39
200 IM—1—Otero, GC, 2:11.88; 3—Jacob Kennedy, 2:32.8; 4—Long, 2:36.17; 6—Linenberger, 2:42.8
500 freestyle—1—Reed, Mc, 5:32.27; 2—Huslig, 5:33.34; 5—Sanders, 7:16.03; 9—Wagner, 8:08.16