Girls swim placed 16th overall at the District 1 Class 1 State competition on Feb. 18.

The Falcons amassed a total of 46 points at the meet. Coach Lucas Benson said two school records were broken at State as well. “In [the 100 Butterfly], freshman Breanna Wilkinson improved on her record for the prelim time, and she is also the current school record holder for the [event] which is cool. We had the 200 free relay, which also improved our school record,” Benson said.

Wilkinson placed 5th in the 100 butterfly with a time of 58.32 and 10th in the 50 yard freestyle with a time of 25.04. She said despite being disappointed with some of her finals, she was grateful to have spent the season with her teammates, and looks forward to cutting down time next year.

“I think state went very well, I’m very proud of our team. I think my races went well. It was a very emotional day and although finals didn’t really go how I wanted then to, I’m so happy to have experienced everything with my amazing teammates. Next year I hope to make it back to top eight at state and improve my times,” Wilkinson said.

As for the relays, the Falcons had two make it to finals. The 200 freestyle relay with Wilkinson, sophomore Lily Maginn, and seniors Matia Puljic and Jenny Reiter placed 9th with a time of 1:43.87. The 400 freestyle relay with Maginn, Wilkinson, Reiter, and sophomore Sarah Lauck placed 14th with a time of 3:50.87.

Puljic said despite not making it to the championship final, she was grateful to end her swim career by placing 9th in her relay.

“The first day I personally was very mad that our relay didn’t make top eight but I think that getting 9th place was good because we won our heat and that was a very nice way to end my senior season because that was the last swim I’m ever going to do so it was nice to end that way,” Puljic said.

Maginn, who placed 16th in the 200 freestyle with a time of 2:05.03 said she was unsatisfied with her events, but was grateful that the team was able to succeed.

“I personally did not do as well as I would have hoped. I added time in both of my events and it was nice that I made it to finals in the 200 free but I did add both days so that wasn’t amazing but as a team I think we did really well,” Maginn said.

Benson said he was appreciative of how much the team had been able to progress when compared to their results at the last state meet.

“Diving we had Kai Booher, who placed 19th at diving so there was a lot to be excited about this year. So overall team scoring we scored 46 points and we finished 16th overall. We improved our finish this season, last year we finished 25th overall and this year we were 16th overall, so we doubled our point scores from last year,” Benson said.

Benson also said that it was great to see participation and improvement across the entirety of the swim program this season.

“I think that this was a really fun season. We had a lot of success from a lot of our swimmers. We had more athletes with more opportunities just because our team was a little bit smaller this year and so it was great to see that this year,” Benson said. “A lot of hard work was put in by everybody from a lot of our top swimmers all the way down to our newest swimmers so it was good to see that improvement over the course of the season.”