Area swimmers grab state qualification, others must wait

BOWLING GREEN — Several area swimmers qualified last evening for next week’s state championship meet and several more will wait until the official results are released Sunday in the Division II district swim meet at Bowling Green State University.

The top two in each race were automatic qualifiers while the rest of the field will be filled with the fastest times from the five districts.

“It was O.K.,” Shawnee coach Jeff Brown said. “Not great, but good enough to get to the next level. I’m not disappointed. We are doing fine. There are no disasters and we look forward to next week.”

Automatic qualifiers for the Indians included the girls 200-yard medley relay (1:52.21). The team of Emily Murphy, Katie Chung, Emily Wolrey and Aerika Wieser missed winning the event by .05 of a second. Murphy was district champion in the 50 (23.98) and 100-yard free (52.14).

The quartet of Molly Scott, Chung, Cara Murphy and Emily Murphy combined to get an automatic spot next Friday to the state championship in Canton finishing second in the 200-yard free relay (1:40.44).

“Hopefully this is a step toward greatness next week,” Brown said. “Everyone who was supposed to make it has.

Although no other area girls were automatic qualifiers, several teams finished in the top 10. Sandusky Perkins won the girls district. Shawnee finished fourth, Celina was seventh, Lima Central Catholic was eighth, Bath finished 10th, Wapakoneta was 12th.

“We dropped times, but not places,” LCC coach Dan Reinecke said. “You won’t know until Sunday afternoon. It’s bad enough to have to wait one day, but now we wait two.”

Napoleon won the boys district championship with Shawnee finishing second. Celina was fifth while Wapakoneta was 14th.

“I’m real happy,” Celina coach Matt May said. “The kids had a dynamite meet. They were doing times I didn’t think they could do. We have a good shot to get a handful of races (to state). It’s exciting and we swam well.”

Shawnee’s Erik Risolvato won three district titles. The defending state champion won the 100-yard butterfly (50.08) and teamed with Logan Curl, Garrett Diltz and Zachary Diltz to win the 200 (1:26.53) and 400-yard free relay (3:13.86). The team finished .09 seconds from adding the 200-yard medley relay (1:39.54) championship medal to their collection.

Fellow Shawnee swimmer Britton Weight won the 100 (48.02) and 200-yard freestyle (1:45.41).

Ada’s Matthew Wilcox won the 50-yard freestyle (21.92) and Van Wert’s Eric Easley in the 100-yard backstroke (54.46) are the only other automatic qualifiers.

“We broke four school records,” Wapakoneta coach Mark Law said. “We should get one out for sure and a few are on the bubble. They dropped times on all of them. It was a good day for us.”