| ROCHESTER -- A few members of Portage
Northern's boys' swimming and diving team will hang around Oakland
University for another day at the state finals. |
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| The top 16 places in Friday's preliminaries
advance to today's competition, but only the top eight in each event will
compete in the finals. |
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| Senior Igor
Rasula posted a 11th-place finish in the 200 freestyle Friday
afternoon, as did the 400 free relay team of Rasula,
Alex
Dawson, Barrett Marble and Kyle Austin. The same quartet
recorded a ninth-place performance and season-best time in the 200 free
relay, narrowly missing all-state honors by four one-hundredths of a second. |
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| "It was a bit of a dissappointment
for the guys to come up short but they swam pretty well and we will end
up placing higher as a team this year than last year (25th)," Northern
Jim
Center said. |
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| Otsego's season ended Friday with
Andrew Larson placing 18th in the 50 free. "The Class A schools just dominated,
but we swam really well and broke two school records in the medley relay
and the 100 butterfly," Otsego coach Darryl Belton said. |
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Kalamazoo Central's Justin Rauhoff,
who suffered a broken finger earlier in the season, missed the cut by one
spot, placing 17th in the 100 fly and Liam Galliger took 18th in diving
in the d1 competition at Eastern Michigan University.
"We are pretty happy with our performance.
Justin's injury has really hampered his season, but he fought back and
turned in his best time ever in the 100 fly," Kalamazoo Central coach Ty
Parker said. |
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| Mattawan freshman Rob Andrews will
swim today after recording a 16th-place preliminary time of 54.01 seconds
in the 100 fly, a personal best. |
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| Andrews is the only local d1 swimmer
who will be competing in the finals. The 200 free relay team of Andrews,
Paul Tansey, Jeff Hoyle and Brian Wiley failed to make it to the finals,
but clocked a new school record of 1:31.41, beating the previous record
by over a second. |
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| Portage Central swimmers participated
Friday but none qualified for today's competition. |
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