Hays Post
TOPEKA. – A magical season for the Hays High School boys’ swim team continues.
On Tuesday at the Topeka High meet, the Indians knocked 7.5 seconds off their previous-best time in the 400-yard relay team to qualify for the state championships.
Their time of 3 minutes, 41.51 seconds capped another successful day for the HHS squad, which has just 11 players on its roster.
The Indians still scored enough points (189) to finish fifth in team scoring, which was dominated by Class 6A heavyweights Lawrence Free State (538) and Lawrence High (339).
Thirty of the Indians’ points came from that state-qualifying 400-yard relay team of senior Marshall Sook, sophomore Cedric Durr and juniors Karsen Flaska and Chase Zadina that finished third in that race.
That foursome also has qualified for state in the 200-yard relay.
Also on Tuesday, Sook qualified for the season finale in the 100-yard freestyle with his personal-best time of 52.44 seconds, good enough for fourth place.
He will have a busy weekend at the Class 5-1A State Championships on Feb. 20-22 in Lenexa, as he had already qualified in the 50-yard freestyle earlier this season.
On Tuesday, Sook placed second in the 50-yard free with a career-best time of 23.11 seconds and also was a member of the 200-yard medley team that finished fourth.
In an extremely competitive field in the 50-yard free, Flaska finished just out of the top 10 in 11th place but still hit a state-consideration time of 24.75.
Because of the size of the meet (12 schools), scoring went to the top 16 finishers in each race.
Other top-eight finishes for Hays High were the 200-yard medley relay (Flaska, junior Noah Shaeffer, Zadina and Sook), fourth; junior Jude Hileman, eighth, 200-yard individual medley; Zadina and Durr, sixth and eighth, 100-yard butterfly; Flaska, fifth, 500-yard freestyle; and Hileman, eighth, 100-yard backstroke.
Next up for Hays High will be Saturday at the Wichita West meet, where the Indians will try to better some of their state-consideration times to automatic-qualifying standards.