Chips advance in three finals events

HOLLAND — The Manistee girls swimming and diving team scored two points in its state finals debut last year.

The Chippewas are in position to tally a lot more this season.

Manistee’s 200-yard freestyle relay and sophomore Anna Kutschke (50-yard freestyle, 100-yard freestyle) advanced to today’s finals after strong performances in preliminaries of the Division 3 state finals Friday at the Holland Community Aquatic Center.

“We’re pleased with the results,” said Manistee coach Corey Van Fleet. “We anticipated we might score a few more points, but at this point, we’re probably going to come in around 32, 33 points, which is a lot better than the two we had last year.”

The 200-yard freestyle relay of Jessica Gustad, Syriah Dobis, Sara Wehrmeister and Kutschke posted a time of 1:43.69 to place eighth and advance to the championship heat — the first Manistee relay to do so in program history.

The top eight finishers in each event swim in the championship heat and those ninth through 16th swim in today’s consolation heat with everyone scoring points.

Kutschke had an exhausting day after swimming in a pair of relays and a pair of individual events — both of which led to swim-offs to settle ties.

“There was not a single person on the deck of the swimming pool — and I’ve been at this since 1953 — that had ever seen the same swimmer in two swim-offs,” Van Fleet said.

Kutschke’s time of 24.86 tied Adrian’s Emily Goodson for eighth in the 50-yard freestyle while her time of 55.56 tied Adrian’s Carolyn Roberts for 16th in the 100-yard freestyle. So, after swimming in the 400-yard freestyle relay, Kutschke had a half-hour break before the 50-yard swim-off and another 30 minutes before the 100-yard swim-off.

Kutschke posted a school-record time of 24.59 in the 50-yard swim-off, but lost by one hundredth of a second to Goodson to drop into the consolation heat with a ninth seed. Kutschke came back to edge Roberts in the 100-yard swim-off (55.32 to 55.44) to advance into the consolation heat with the 16th spot.

“She swam beautifully,” Van Fleet said. “If she swims in the 100 tomorrow like she swam in the swim-off, she’s not going to be 16th. She’ll be up around the top of the consolation heat.”

Manistee was represented in eight events Friday, but was unable to advance in any others. The 200-yard medley relay of Valerie Urban, Maddy Applegarth, Dobis and Gustad finished 20th (1:57.41) and the 400-yard freestyle relay of Dobis, Gustad, Wehrmeister and Kutschke also placed 20th (3:50.57).

Individually, Gustad placed 26th in the 50 (25.95), Dobis was 22nd (1:03.72) and Kiara Bromley 24th (1:04.03) in the 100-yard butterfly, Allie Zimmerman 42nd (5:47.37) in the 500-yard freestyle and Urban 25th (1:05.21) in the 100-yard backstroke.

“We swam well in spots,” Van Fleet said. “This particular meet today was pretty fast with a lot of good drops by a lot of teams.”
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