Grayson Porter

Visiting the Byron Center Bulldogs on a sunny 80-degree evening, the FHC girls’ swim and dive team knew this was going to be a tough matchup. FHC gave it their all, but fell short to the Bulldogs 77-108.

Starting off the meet with the 200-yard medley relay, the Byron Center A team got first with a time of 1:57.01, but barely scratching first place, the FHC A team finished .06 seconds later with a time of 1:57.07. Coming in 3rd place was the FHC B team with a time of 2:07.41.

“It was an okay race, it wasn’t my best race, but it felt pretty good,” said swimmer Avery LaJoie, who participated in the 200 medley relay. “I feel our team this year is better, and we can come back with a strong finish.”

Next was the 200-yard freestyle, with no Rangers competing in heat 1 of 2. In the second heat with 4 Rangers, a BYC swimmer got first with a time of 1:59.00, but finishing a few seconds later, Linnea Dicander finished 2nd with a time of 2:03.00. Allison Meny finished the race with a time of 2:06.19, getting her 3rd place. 

The Rangers were outswam in the next race, the 200-yard individual medley, with Byron Center claiming 1st and 2nd place. Lola Lipke was able to secure 3rd place with a time of 2:23.96.

“We thought maybe we would win, but I don’t know, Coach Dennis seems to think we could do it,” swimmer Tilda Bupp responded when asked about the team’s expectations coming into the meet. “I think we have performed incredibly so far.”

Forest Hills Central dominated in the 50-yard freestyle, with Ciana Fors in 1st, and Maggie Holt finishing 3rd with times of 25.54 and 26.52.

“Byron’s team is really good and we haven’t won against them in the past, but we’ve performed pretty well so far,” Madi Weage said after also swimming in the 50-yard freestyle. “We’ve won the first 3 meets, but lost the last one, but we are doing better than last year.”

Only 2 girls from FHC competed in the diving, Juniors Mia Shaffer and Sydney Bresnahan, against two others from Byron Center. After a strong performance from both divers, Shaffer got 3rd place, and Bresnahan got 2nd place out of 4.

“I would say the warmup was good, and then I had a couple good dives, like my inward was good, my back dive was good, and then a couple that weren’t so good,” Shaffer says after the diving contest. “I definitely need to improve my front 2 and a half, I got a little lost in the air and came out not great. So I definitely just need to improve and get into a better mental state before the game as well.”

After the dives was the 100-yard fly, with Ellie Palmer finishing in 3rd place, with a time of 1:06.51. Lola Lipke finished with a time of 1:04.86, just seconds behind Byron Center’s first place.

Byron Center secured yet another first place in the first heat of the 100-yard freestyle, but Rangers Simiana Tyrrell and Madi Weage were able to get points for FHC, who claimed 2nd and 3rd places. In the 2nd and final heat, Byron Center earned first and third places, but that doesn’t shine the spotlight off Ciana Fors, who delivered a strong performance, finishing second with a time of 57.59 seconds.

Linnea Dicander gained much-needed points for the Rangers, with a dominant first-place finish in the 500-yard freestyle with a time of 5:32.06, yet the Bulldogs earned 2nd and 3rd place.

The Bulldogs’ dominance continued into the final events, with them getting first in the 200-yard freestyle relay, with their A and B teams earning 1st and 3rd place. FHC A team managed to get some points by finishing in second place.

In the second-to-last event, the 100-yard breaststroke, Natalie Holt finished just mere seconds before first, already earned by Byron Center, getting Holt a second-place title, getting some late points for Central, along with Ava Mattison, who claimed 3rd place with a time of 1:18.50.

“Just continuing to work on pacing in practice, trying to get the second half of the race better, a little bit better focus, and especially in competitive-type events. I’d like to see them finish the races a little bit sharper,” said Coach Neat during the meet. “We swim well, but, you know, there’s always room for improvement. 
We can always get better. Coming out of the turns, going underwater, and kicking a lot better. So, we’re getting better. 
I like what the team’s doing. I like the team’s work, but we still have to work on the finishes.” 

FHC ended with a strong performance in the final event of the night, the 400-yard freestyle relay. Byron Center claimed yet another 1st place and 3rd place titles, with FHC A team taking second place with a time of 3:54.14 

“Look for the positives. You know, there are always positives and negatives in every sporting event, so you try to look at and focus more on the positives than the negatives. Then you come back later on and you say, Hey, this is what we need to work on, but you don’t highlight, you don’t beat anybody down,” responded Coach Neat to the question of how he manages team emotions after a loss. “You want to keep everybody going in the right direction, but you don’t want to make it a false sense. You want to make it a positive. Hey, you guys did a great job on the exchanges. You guys did a great job on your starts today. So you just reinforce what’s been good and what you’ve been working on, and then you come back in a couple of practices and say, here’s what we need to work on.”