Complete team results (PDF)

NEWTON— Finishing up the final pre conference event as runner up at Newton, the Great Bend girls swim team will now focus their attention on next week’s WAC meet at Garden City.

Out of five teams competing Thursday, the Panthers recorded a silver finish with 286 points, 57 points in front of Maize South. Hutchinson (223) and Maize High (131) were the bottom finishers at Thursday’s event while host Newton polled 493 team points as the top finisher.

“We swam well at Newton. We had six girls sitting out with illness and injury so to finish second was a real accomplishment,” said Panther coach Steve Beaumont. “Obviously, we need to get healthy to have a chance at WAC next week.”

Camryn Dunekack collected a pair of gold medals in individual events with wins in the 50 and 100 yard freestyle with times of 26.78 and 1:00.10 respectively. She then teamed up with Kira Cook, Michaela Cape and Emma Williams to win the 200 free relay timing in at 1:52.32.

Madeline Vesta recorded a state qualifying time of 1:10.41 and placed third in the 100 fly. She joined Cape, Kalyn Blessing and Cook for a third place finish in the 200 medley relay at 2:07.40. Cook was also a third place finisher in the 200 individual medley with a time of 2:33.96.

“Several of our younger swimmers have really made some great improvements,” Beaumont said. “Paloma Sandoval, Morgan Kaiser and Calista Long each had some really nice time improvements in their events.”

Beaumont said the goal for next week is to raise the octane level before the trip to Garden City.

“Our focus for the next week is to get ready to swim our best times of the season at WAC. This team has really swam well during some big meets and big races all season,” he said. “We just need to do it one more time. We know Garden City is looking forward to meeting us again. We have to go to their place and swim our best times of the season. It’s that simple.”

Next week’s conference meet will be held Thursday, May 14.