by Sarah Lane with Julie Hall and Tamara Kaye Sellman, November 11, 2012, 1:12 p.m.
This weekend the BHS girls swim team made Bainbridge proud at state finals, held at the Weyerhaeuser King County Aquatic Center, taking 2nd overall in the 3A swim championship with 303 points after Mercer Island with 376. Bainbridge also took first in three events, the 100-yard backstroke, the 500-yard freestyle, and the 200-yard relay medley.
Despite her Lane 2 placement, Spartan Shayla Archer, a junior, won the 100-yard backstroke with an All-American qualification time of 56.18, beating out Oak Harbor’s Emily Huffer by a second.
Spartan Senior Sarah Grundman grabbed first place from Lakeside’s Addie Chambers in the 500-yard freestyle by about forty one-hundredths of a second. Teammate Kay Sterner, also a senior, took third.
The Bainbridge 200-yard relay team, comprised of Archer, Grundman, junior Anna Peirano, and freshman Ani Duni, beat out Mercer Island in the medley, with an All-American time of 1:47:75, about four seconds off the state record.
Grundman ended up in eighth place in the 200-yard individual medley. In the 200-yard freestyle, Spartans Kay Sterner, a senior, and Mikelle Ackerley, a sophomore, took sixth and seventh, respectively. Peirano placed eighth in the 100-yard butterfly. Duni finished fourth in the 100-yard breaststroke and led off the 200-yard freestyle relay with teammates Amanda Comeau, also a freshman, Archer, and Ackerley for Bainbridge Island, which ended up second to Mercer Island, after anchor Comeau pulled them out of third. In the 400-yard freestyle relay, Spartans Ackerley, Sterner, Grundman, and freshman Candice Rosen, took third, after Mercer and Hanford.
In diving, Spartan Shannon Engelbrecht, a junior, came in third in the 1 meter.
The parents of Bainbridge’s own Olympic medalist Emily Silver and 2006 NCAA 200-yard backstroke champion Helen Silver were there to cheer on the Spartans.
Watch highlights of the championship here.
Photos courtesy of Bainbridge High School swim/dive team.
