The Thunder Mountain High School girls swimming team continued their winning ways this weekend at the Petersburg Invitational.
The Falcons totaled 117 points in Friday’s meet to claim their fourth-consecutive win, having previously won the second meet of the Juneau Invitational (Sept. 21) and both meets of the Ketchikan Invitational (Oct. 4 & 5). Juneau-Douglas: Yadaat.at Kalé took second with 70 points, Ketchikan took third with 57 points.
Saturday’s team results were not immediately available.
“I think as they’ve become more comfortable with each other, more respectful of each other and really grown as a family, we’ve seen that change in their swimming too,” TMHS coach Josiah Loseby said.
Sophomore Nancy Liddle led the Falcons with three first-place finishes on Friday. Liddle, who broke a school record earlier this year, won the 100-yard butterfly and 500-yard freestyle. Liddle’s 400-yard freestyle relay team was also victorious, finishing in 3 minutes, 51.96 seconds. Loseby said the team of Liddle, Alex Jenkins, Allie Morgan and Riley Traxler, was shooting for 3:51.20, TMHS’ time at last year’s state meet.
Loseby reminded them there’ll be more opportunities. The Petersburg meets marked the final tune-up before the Region V Swimming Championships Nov. 1-2 in Sitka.
“We’re just getting done with some of the hardest weeks of our season,” Loseby said.
The JDHS girls also had strong relay performances, topping the 200 medley on Friday and 200 freestyle on Saturday. Both the teams were made up of the same four girls: Mesa Moran, Tahlia Gerger, Addy Mallott and Madelyn Boman. As the season winds down, JDHS coach Seth Cayce expects his swimmers will only swim faster.
“Everyone was just kind of on track with their season bests, and that’s good, the consistency is good because we’re pretty tired and pretty broken down right now,” Cayce said. “There was a sickness coming through the team for a bit there, a lot of people missed for a lot of different reasons.”
The TMHS boys also claimed first on Friday, posting 100 points to top Ketchikan (93 points) and JDHS (58 points). The Falcons’ strongest event was the 100 breaststroke as Sven Rasmussen, Karthik Sanguni and Samson Anderson swept the top three spots.
“It was a really good race all the way up to the very end,” Loseby said. “They were all 1:08 and they were just off each other by a couple hundredths of a second.”
• Contact sports reporter Nolin Ainsworth at 523-2272 or nainsworth@juneauempire.com.
