Ready for regions

HOMER — Local swimmers’ potential journey to the state championship meet goes through the Kate Kuhns Aquatic Center.

Athletes from Colony, Palmer and Wasilla will be competing for spots in the upcoming state meet during the Region III Swimming and Diving Championships, which continues today in Homer.

The conference champion from each of the state’s four regions and the swimmers with the next 12 best region finals times statewide will qualify in each individual event for the state meet. The conference relay champions and the next four teams with the best region finals times will qualify for each state relay event. The top two divers from each conference and the next eight best scorers qualify for the diving meet.

Based on a recent compilation of the state’s best marks, a handful of Valley athletes could be state-bound after region championship weekend.

Led by its strong relay teams, the Palmer girls will look to improve on its sixth-place relay finish from a year ago. The 400-yard freestyle relay team — which includes Katie Stark, Sarah Hanson, Naomi Graham and Noelle Graham — is ranked second in Region III and third in the state. The foursome posted its best time of 3 minutes and 47.97 seconds during the Valley Invitational earlier this season. The relay team set a Palmer school record with the time.

Palmer’s mark is just shy of Kodiak’s best. The Bears relay team scored a time of 3:47.47 this season.

Juneau-Douglas is ranked first in the event.

Palmer also posted a school record in the 200 freestyle relay with a time of 1:44.46, and is ranked second in the region.

Stark is expected to contend for high finishes in the region meet and spots in state in the 50 and 100 freestyle events. Stark is ranked second in the region in the 50 free (25.05 seconds) and third in the 100 free (54.64).

Heading into the region meet, Naomi Graham is ranked seventh in the state in the 50 free and eighth in the 100 butterfly. Noelle Graham has the 11th best time in the state in the 50 free this season.

Diver Joe Provo leads the Palmer boys into the region meet. Heading into regions, Provo was ranked first in Region III and third in the state. The diving preliminaries began Thursday. Results were not available prior to press time.

The Colony boys are also eager to improve on their sixth-place finish in the team standings in 2011.

Alex Kessler is a top-16 swimmer in three events. Kessler is ranked eighth in the 100 backstroke, 10th in the 100 breaststroke and 13th in the 200 freestyle. His teammate, Zach Bloom, is 12th in the 500 freestyle.

Events in the 14-team region championships continue today at 9:30 a.m., with the girls’ diving semifinals. The boys’ diving semifinals are scheduled to start at 11 a.m.

The swimming preliminaries are slated for today at 3 p.m. The swimming and diving finals are scheduled to being Saturday at 1 p.m.

Contact the sports department at sports@frontiersman.com.