With sixteen team members this season and six who qualified for the state meet, the boys swim team surpassed all expectations with a 10th-place overall finish last weekend at the state championships at Eastern Michigan University.
Led by strong relays and some outstanding performances in individual events, the boys scored 88 points.
“We had an incredible weekend,” head coach Dennis Neat said. “The whole team has worked hard all season and the results that we saw at the conference meet and now the state finals were spectacular. They found a way to have fun this season and accepted the limited team size as just another challenge while swimming fast all season.”
The opening event saw the 200 Medley Relay team swim the 4th fastest time in school history. Senior Reed Dixon (backstroke -24.97), junior Logan Tiggleman (breaststroke- 26.57), junior Nolan Breckon (fly- 24.31) and sophomore Lucas Witham (free- 21.14) placed 5th in the state with their 1:36:99 time. The team was seeded ninth in this event going into the weekend but moved up four spots.
Soon after, Dixon was back in the pool for the 200 Individual Medley. He took 7th in the state and his preliminary time on Friday of 1:59.48 is the ninth best in school history.
In the 50 freestyle, Witham placed 5th in the state on Saturday and his 21.57 in the prelims on Friday was the second-best time in school history. He followed that performance up with a solid 100 Freestyle placing 8th on Saturday with a personal best time of 47.82 (#4 in school history).
Witham was very happy with the team’s finish despite having only six swimmers at the meet.
“The state meet was huge for us as we only had 6 swimmers participating and still managed to place 10th,” he said. “Most other teams at the meet had at least 15 swimmers plus a diver getting them points so to be able to beat out most of those teams for A finals in individual events and relays was big.”
Next up was the 200 Free Relay. The team changed the relay order on Saturday and finished with a season-best time of 1:29.46 which is the 4th best time in school history. Witham- 21.81; Breckon- 22.40; Grant- 23.35; Dixon- 21.90 earned more points toward the team’s total of 88.
Just fifteen minutes later, Dixon was back for the 100 Back “B” finals. His 54.72 was 16th in the state and was a little short of his 53.88 (#5 in school history) in the preliminary on Friday.
On Friday, Breckon had a personal best time of 54.17 and ended up 17th. His time is good for #6 in the backstroke rankings in FHC history.
In the 100 Breaststroke, Tiggleman finished off “Fast Friday” with a blazing 59.00 time and finished 8th. On Saturday, Tiggleman improved to 7th place and lowered his time to 58.81 (#3 in school history). Tiggleman thought that team togetherness was critical to the success at states.
“I am so proud of our state team this year,” he said. “I think our dynamic and the way we all got along distracted from our nervousness. Being in the Medley relay was fun because we all were focused and ready to swim fast.”
Witham enjoyed the state atmosphere and thinks the team will be back again next year.
“For some of us, I know it was a new experience being in the finals,” he said. “For some of those races, it was a swim atmosphere I had never felt before but it was good to take it all in and learn for next year where I guarantee some of us will be back hoping to place higher.”
Tiggleman agreed that the team was a close-knit group and is thankful for the experience.
“With only 16 people on the team, we got so close,” he said. “I’m going to miss the seniors that motivated me to do as best I can. Individually, I knew I was going to go to States this year, but I did not expect to make it to finals. Looking up at the wall and seeing that I made it was definitely unique.”
