The Mercer Island girls swim and dive team bested all of its 3A competition at the KingCo championships Saturday afternoon at Kamiak High School.
Competing against 16 schools across the 2A, 3A and 4A classes, Mercer Island placed second overall at Saturday’s final round with a team score of 522. Skyline won the meet with a score of 529.5. Newport was third at 512, Bellevue was fourth with a score of 447 and Issaquah rounded out the top five at 414.
Finishing 7.5 points behind a Skyline team that claimed a share of the 4A KingCo league crown this season, Mercer Island coach Evan Moline had nothing but praise for the effort given by his swimmers.
“It was all across the board and that was awesome to see,” he said. “Everyone was excited and pushing themselves. I was really, really impressed and really happy with how every girl performed today.”
Mercer Island swimmers posted state qualifying marks in seven of the meet’s 12 events, including all three relays. The team of Hailey Vandenbosch, Alex Williams, Maeve Murdoch and Ellie Williams was fourth in the 400 free relay (3:45.24). Ellie Bailey, Sydney Seto, Annie Pearse and Ellie Williams were fifth in the 200 free relay (1:43.65). Though competing in the B final of the 200 medley relay, Alex Williams, Grace Olsen, Murdoch and Bailey finished eighth overall with a 4A state-qualifying time of 1:55.45.
Moline said the Islanders’ 200 free and 400 free relay times posted Saturday were season-bests.
“That [400 free] relay, I was impressed with every single one of the swims from each of those girls,” he said. “Three of them are seniors, so that was really cool to see them step up to the challenge, take ownership on to themselves and show the team that they’re out there swimming for everyone else.”
Pearse posted a state-qualifying time in the 50 free, placing third at 25.18. Murdoch was fourth in the 100 fly (1:00.39). Hixon tied for 11th place in the 100 back with Bellevue’s Rylee Siripipat, each finishing with a state cut of 1:01.9. In the diving event, Sophie McGuffin placed fourth with a state-qualifying final round score of 350.5. Dive teammate Kayla Varney placed 14th (300.85).
In the 200 free, Ellie Williams placed fifth (2:01.76) and Hixon was right behind her in sixth (2:01.81). Olsen placed eighth in the 200 IM (2:18.34). Chloe Mark placed sixth in the 500 free (5:26.14).
With the district championships coming up next weekend, Mercer Island will look to further add to its list of state qualifiers. Moline said he still had several swimmers “knocking on the door” for meeting those state marks.
“We had a couple girls who took a break off their main event this weekend because they wanted to take a little bit of the pressure off,” he said. “They’re gonna key in on that next week. I think we’ll see some more state cuts then.”
MI all-league honorees
Six Islanders were recognized in the 2016 All-KingCo selections. Sammie Edwards and Vandenbosch were named to the All-KingCo 2A/3A first team. Hixon, Murdoch and Alex Williams earned second team honors and Bailey received honorable mention.
Mercer Island also had six swimmers recognized as 2016 KingCo scholar athletes, which honors student-athletes with a minimum 3.75 cumulative GPA. Mercer Island’s scholar athletes were Ahnna Heuple, Hixon, Murdoch, Mallory Phillips, Heather Robinson and Seto.
