Mount Gilead took six swimmers to Bowling Green State University Thursday for the Central/East/Southeast District tournament. This meet featured the top 24 individual qualifiers and the top 16 relay qualifiers from the Central/East/Southeast sectional tournaments.

For the girls, Emily Hanft placed 13th in the 50 free and 19th in the 100 free.

The boys swam in the morning session, and the five-man squad placed 10th out of 33 teams!

In individual events, Joel Conrad earned a 7th place podium finish in the 100 free, and with a 2nd place finish in the 50 free, he was an automatic qualifier for the state tournament! He is the first MG swimmer to qualify and will compete in Canton on Thursday, Feb. 26.

Mason Kidwell broke a minute in his 100 fly to place 13th. He also moved up to #3 on the MG top 5 in that event. Michael Snopik had a 6th place podium finish in the 50 free and an 11th place finish in the 100 free with PRs in both events.

Eric Mowery, Tyler Knight, Kidwell and Conrad dropped three seconds off their qualifying time in the 200 medley relay. Tyler, Mason, Eric Mowery and Snopik also improved their time in the 200 free relay, placing 10th overall. Eric, Mason, Michael and Joel teamed up for the 400 free relay at the end of the meet to take three seconds off their record and achieved a sixth place podium finish! According to unofficial results posted on swimmeet.com, this relay missed qualifying for the state tournament by just 1.5 seconds—placing them 26th out of 62 competing relays statewide!

Katie Hanft

Colonel Crawford junior Katie Hanft advanced to the high school swimming state meet.

In the district meet, she finished first in the 200 free (2:00.66) and 500 free (5:25.82), and also advanced in two relays, so she will compete at state in four events on Wednesday, Feb. 4. This will be her second year competing at state. Last year, she went in three relays. Her goal this year was to make it in individual events and she did it!

Hanft also got to compete with her sister, Emily, at a few meets. Emily, who swims for Mount Gilead, also competed in two events at districts.

Information received from Dina Snow and Suzi Hanft.