Cheesemaker swimmers excel at district meet

Tillamook swimmers saved their best for last, the last meet with the full team in attendance that is. The Cheesemakers boasted a full 100% of the team’s participants achieving at least one personal record during the meet. I have been coaching this sport for a long time and let me tell you, having every swimmer on the team PR at the last meet of the year is not an easy thing to do.

There were numerous highlights to celebrate after the meet. We saw 35 individual personal bests in the meet and 14 more relay personal bests. We had 25 District finalists, our boys’ team placed third overall and we had 15 All-District (top six) performances. We saw three top-three performances and had one district champion.

Four boys swam in seven different events at the OSAA State Championships on Friday and Saturday, February 16 and 17, please check next week’s edition for those results.

The boys medley relay of Landon Munly, Jack Sappington, Wyatt Swart and Brandon Hudgeon earned a wildcard berth, as did Sappington and Hudgeon in the 50 Freestyle, Hudgeon in the 100 Freestyle, Munly in the 100 Backstroke, Sappington in the 100 Breaststroke (ranked number one), and the 400 Free Relay of Munly, Swart, Hudgeon, and Sappington. The quartet has had a tremendous year and get to finish in a big way next week at State.

In addition to the state qualifiers, there were a number of standout performances that helped Tillamook swimmers earned All-District honors including, Hanna Amirkhanian in the 200 and 500 Freestyle, Guadalupe Rojas-Vega in the 100 Butterfly, Swart in the 200 Individual Medley, Amanthis Allen in the 50 and 100 Freestyle, Ethan Jackson, Noel Guttierez, Diego Velazquez and Cyrus Werner in the 200 Free Relay.

Jack Sappington improved on his own school record and will be the #1 ranked swimmer going into state in the 100 breaststroke. He and Hudgeon are also ranked in the top 5 for the 50 free and 100 freestyle respectively. It’s been a long time since Tillamook has had a boy state champion and Sappington has his eyes on making history Saturday.