Valley swimmers and divers compete at state

Swimmers and divers from around the state met at Bartlett High School Friday and Saturday to determine the state's best.

With preliminaries thinning the field of Valley competitors, only the Colony girls' swimmers and Palmer diver Eric Hansen were left to compete in the finals.

Colony's sophomore sensation Sarah Brettrager came into the 50-yard freestyle championship fresh off her record-setting win last week in the Region III finals. In a race that was over almost as fast as it began, Brettrager was edged by Service's Julia Chang to finish second, by less than a half-second. Chang finished in 24.26 seconds with Brettrager finishing in 24.75.

Brettrager went on to finish third in the 100 freestyle behind Chang and Service teammate Sierra Winegarner.

"Overall I think I did really good," said Brettrager. "I

didn't feel as powerful as I thought I should, but I had fun and that was my goal."

Elise Long of Colony finished seventh in the 200 individual medley.

Colony's 200 and 400 freestyle relay teams of Brettrager, Liz Percak-Dennett, Elise Long, and Jorin Klawitter finished sixth and eighth in the finals.

Percak-Dennett stepped in to fill out the rotation for Anna Fernandez, who was away attending her sister's wedding.

"We always have high hopes but I am pleased with how the girls did," said Colony coach Dawn Brettrager. "All of these girls will be back next year so this was a great learning experience for them."

Hansen finished eighth in his second trip to the state 1-meter diving finals. Hansen accomplished a back dive-pike position, forward double summersault-pike position, and back one and a half summersault with a half twist in the finals.

"I was pretty happy with the dives," said Hansen. "There are a lot of good divers here."

Five of the divers competing qualified for All-America honors by achieving scores of 390 points or better.

Palmer's Kelly Cross narrowly missed the finals by placing ninth in the preliminaries Friday. Only the top eight finishers qualified for Saturday's final event.

Logan Bean of Palmer missed the finals in the 500 freestyle with an 11th-place finish in the preliminaries, but shaved 12 seconds from his time in last week's regions. The time bested his fastest time by seven seconds.

Wasilla's Cara Hesselbach was forced to drop out of competition during the girls' 1-meter diving preliminaries when she strained her back on an earlier dive and was unable to continue.