LocalSportsJournal.com
MANISTEE — Ludington’s boys swimming and diving team competed in the Coastal Conference Championship meet in Manistee on Friday and Saturday, finishing second behind the Chippewas, 531-477. Fremont took third with 240.
During the preliminaries on Friday, which determined where the athletes would swim on Saturday, all of the Orioles dropped time in their respective events which put the team in good position on Saturday.
Going into Saturday’s competition, the Orioles were sitting first in diving, 200-yard freestyle relay and 400-yard freestyle relay.
“The boys swam their hardest, and we had a lot of top eight finishes,” said Ludington coach Joe Schneider.
Evan Bennett won the diving competition with a career-high score of 427.75 points. He advances to the regional diving meet on Thursday at Hamilton.
Ludington’s 200-yard relay team of Hayden Madl, Lucas Peterson, Kyle Wendt and Bennett touched the wall first in a time of `1:36.37, just missing the state cut of 1:35.19.
But, they’ll be competing in the Second Wave meet Tuesday in an attempt to make the cut. This was the first year most of them tried swimming.
That same group also took second in the 200-yard medley relay (1:51.27). Bowen Vaaras, Gavin Smith, Mathew Snyder and Miller finished second in the 400-yard freestyle relay (4:04.90).
Individual second places were recorded by Lucas Miller in the 100-yard butterfly (1:08.52), Bennett in the 200-yard Individual Medley (2:19.76), Hadl in the 100-yard breaststroke (51.14) and the 100-yard backstroke (1:06.11) and Peterson in the 100-yard breaststroke (1:10.84).
Fremont was led by Parker Lammers, who finished second in the 500-yard freestyle (5:45.12) and third in the 100-yard backstroke (1:07.43).
Noah Postema finished third in the 100-yard breaststroke (1:22.20) and the 100-yard breaststroke (1:22.20). Luke DeLong was fifth in the 200-yard individual medley (2:48.66), Brandon Rasmussen took sixth in the 50-yard freestyle.
