BOYS STATE SWIMMING AND DIVING STORYLINES

CLASS 6A
 

BLUE VALLEY WEST'S PUNSWICK RESPONDS TO CANCER DIAGNOSIS BY STAYING FOCUSED ON DEFENDING STATE TITLE IN 100 BREASTSTROKE

Over the past two years, Jack Punswick has twice received bad news that he immediately knew would severely impact his life.

In both situations, Punswick decided the best response to each was to spend more time in the swimming pool.

The first life-changing moment for Punswick took place during the spring of his sophomore year. At that time, he actually was more interested in spending time on-deck than on the pool deck.

Punswick learned that he was being cut from the Jaguars’ baseball team. 

“I was devastated,” Punswick said. “I had played baseball for 10 years up to that point, and I was done with baseball.”

Even though Punswick had participated in swimming for nearly the same length of time, baseball had always been his thing. He saw swimming as a sport that he fit into the gaps of time he spent away from the baseball diamond.

“(Swimming) was always a month in the summer and then for high school just those three months of the season,” Punswick said.

But with baseball off the table, Punswick decided to commit himself to improving as a swimmer.

“I knew I had to go all-in on swimming,” he said. “So during the summer, I was up every day at 5, going to practice twice a day.”

His hard work turned Punswick into one of the most inspiring stories coming out of last year’s 6A boys swimming and diving state championship meet.

But his first state outing got off to a rough start.
 

Although he helped Blue Valley West’s 200-yard medley relay earn the top spot in their prelims race, Punswick followed up by getting disqualified in his 200-yard individual medley race.

He turned things around with his 100-yard breaststroke performance, finishing the prelims with a more than two second advantage over the next best swimmer in prelims.

Then Punswick thought he and his teammates thought they had kicked off the state finals by clinching gold when they edged out Blue Valley North by 0.10 seconds to touch the wall first in the opening race.

But the Jaguars learned that they would not take home any medal at all. They were informed that their relay team was DQed. Punswick was deemed to have made an illegal turn via a double butterfly kick.

Punswick refused to let those setbacks interfere with his last race of the season.

He let off the gas a little as a precaution to avoid any self-inflicted heartbreaks, but he still delivered a gold-medal performance. Punswick touched the wall with a time of 58.60, maintaining a sizable advantage over the runner-up, Olathe Northwest’s Keifer Yim at 1:00.91.

His perseverance stood out among many great stories coming out of that state meet. But that would be nothing compared to the determination he showed when he received more bad news early into his senior year.

Punswick stayed focused on improving his times and carrying that momentum into potentially competing in swimming at the college level.

From May through the end of July, Punswick competed in four regional swim competitions where he worked on his time in the 100-meter breaststroke.

After starting with a time of 1:15.14 back in May, Punswick kept shaving off time until he delivered a 1:06.78 at the USA Swimming Futures Championship in Minneapolis from July 24-27.
 

Punswick was able to accomplish these times despite experiencing a couple of illnesses throughout his summer training.

He would later find out that his body was fighting off something even worse.

After noticing some lumps on his neck, Punswick asked about those during one of his visits to his doctor. His pediatrician informed him that those were swollen lymph nodes and that they were not currently a cause for concern.

“They were like, ‘Oh, they're fine,’” Punswick recalled his doctor telling him at the time. “‘Just come back in if they keep growing.’”.

With his senior year underway, Punswick took a recruiting trip to the University of Nebraska-Omaha on September 8.

When he returned to school a few days later, he recognized that the lumps had continued to grow. After reporting this in a follow-up visit, his doctor had Punswick participate in a series of tests, starting with a CAT scan that discovered some unknown masses throughout his neck and chest area. This discovery led to more CAT scans, as well as a PET scan, before ultimately leading to a biopsy and overnight hospital stay.

When the results came back on Sept. 12, Punswick was diagnosed with stage II Hodgkin lymphoma.

Punswick felt blindsided when he found out he got cut from the baseball team, news that led to him having a cry in his car. But somehow Punswick seemingly took this devastating information in stride.

He stayed calm during the testing process because he still could not imagine the possibility of receiving that diagnosis.

“You never think it’s going to happen to you,” Punswick said. “You keep telling yourself, ‘It won’t happen to me, it won’t happen to me,” and then it happens to you.”

From the moment he first discovered the lumps until the moment he received his cancer diagnosis, Punswick said he wasn’t really anxious or scared of the possibility of getting this type of news.

“I wasn’t really scared and I haven’t really been scared at all since,” Punswick said. “I have a great support system to help me through it. My anxiety has just been pretty low because I know I’m going to get through it.”

Punswick locked into that mentality almost immediately.

“I remember the next day I said, ‘I’m going to beat cancer and I’m going to be a state champion,” Punswick said.

Despite starting chemotherapy a week after his diagnosis and knowing he’d have Thursday appointments every week from then until the day after Christmas, Punswick remained determined to compete for the Jaguars during this year’s boys swimming and diving season.
 

Even with his positive attitude, Punswick said everyday was still a struggle.

“Every day you had to fight,” Punswick said. “You had to fight and if it weren’t for the support of others, I don’t think I’d be where I am right now. I had countless help from so many people that contributed to my success. No one ever achieved success alone.”

Punswick said it was hard to do anything physical, whether it was walking around his neighborhood or up a set of stairs, his previous cardiovascular and muscular strength was completely zapped when he started treatment.

But Punswick remained determined to keep going. He remembers his doctors and nurses telling him things like, “The more you move, the better you’re going to feel,” throughout chemo.

Punswick said he may have taken that advice a little too seriously.

“I just really hated just staying in my bed all day,” Punswick said. “I need to get up and move. I have goals that I still want to accomplish. I have things that I still want to do.”

Even with his body at its weakest, Punswick forced himself to keep going to the pool and maintaining a schedule that looked a lot like it would if he was at full strength.

“I really liked the way that swim gave me a sense of normalcy,” Punswick said. “I got to do something I love and I got to see people I like and still get to move my body.”

By the time December rolled around, Punswick was able to keep himself ready to compete when his team’s season started. In his first race since his diagnosis, he swam the 100-yard breaststroke. Punswick won the race and finished with a time that qualified him for state.

“From that point on, I was like, ‘Alright, this is a real dream that I can hold onto,’” Punswick said. “I made sure every single day I woke up and I thought about that dream. I thought about that goal and it’s something I can achieve.”

Although the race gave him proof that he could still compete at that level, it also gave him a preview of just how taxing it would be to push through this season after all he’d been through in recent months.

“It really hurt,” Punswick said. “That race took a lot out of me.”

After he touched the wall, Punswick needed his teammates to help him get out of the pool. Senior Anthony Lumetta, junior Colton Poe and sophomore Nathan Weiner carried him out of the water and onto the pool deck, where Punswick remained sitting for the next 10 minutes or so as he waited to regain his strength enough to return to his feet.

But Punswick also left that meet feeling an even stronger conviction that he made the right decision to continue competing in the pool.

“To do what I did, it was pretty inspirational for me and to others,” Punswick said.
 

Punswick's time put him within a second of where his time was in this race at the same point during his junior campaign.

Although he completed his chemo on Dec. 26th, he said he’s still feeling the effects of it as he sits a few days away from competing at state.

Punswick has just started to regain his hair in the last couple weeks, but he said his aerobic capacity and cardiovascular strength, as well as his strength overall, are still not anywhere near where they were before he started treatment.

But he said that his final therapy session also “flipped a switch” in him. 

“Instead of having to go for chemotherapy in two weeks, I was done,” Punswick said. “So I started pushing myself more at practice, started staying a little longer, started doing more of the sets, started sprinting more, started just doing more.”

Now he’s heading into Friday’s prelims with the top time in 100 breast after earning a time of 1:00.24.

Sometimes repeat champions have a hard time replicating the emotion shown after winning that first gold. Punswick doesn’t think that will be the case if he’s able to win gold again.

“It will hit so much harder, knowing that these past months have been crazy,” Punswick said. “The first time, it was phenomenal. It was pretty emotional to be a state champion after never even going to state before. But to have this be my second time going to state and be a state champion with cancer. It’s going to be crazy.”

The only thing that could compare will be if Punswick ends up getting an all-clear from his doctors in a couple months. He got his “final scans” last week with the good news that all the cancer was gone. But those scans also showed a couple new spots that his doctors want to double check with a few more scans in April.

If that happens, Punswick is looking forward to celebrating with all the people in his life who helped get to this point. His mother Karen attended every single chemo treatment. His father Eric helped keep him well-fed and hydrated as he pushed his body with workouts. The list of people supporting him also includes his girlfriend, his friends and his coaches.

Despite the hard struggle, Punswick said he appreciates all the quality time he’s been able to spend with these people in his life.

“A cancer diagnosis sucks, but it brings people together,” Punswick said.

Many of those people participated in the creation of merchandise sporting the words “Team Jack,” including stocking caps, bracelets and other items for the team to wear this season.

“I thought was so generous and so supportive of them and the student body,” Punswick said. “I have received countless kind, encouraging, uplifting messages, text messages and Instagram messages.”

The KSHSAA Student Advisory Team announced on Feb. 4 that Punswick was selected as the 2024 KSHSAA Spirit of Sport Award, which he’ll be honored with at the state meet.

 

‘TRAMPOLINE KID’ HOLMES DIVING AT HIGH LEVEL FOR CAMPUS
 
Campus junior Kenton Holmes attended a diving camp last summer in Texas and added a significant item to his repertoire.
 
“It taught me how to dive head first,” Holmes said. “If I learned anything, that one thing was how to go head first.”
 
Such was the blank canvas that Holmes presented last year when he competed in diving for the first time for the Colts. Still, Holmes’ raw talent quickly yielded a state meet-qualifying score, and he went on to finish 10^th in Class 6A last February at Topeka’s Capitol Federal Natatorium.
 
This week, Holmes will return to state at the Shawnee Mission School District Aquatic Center in Lenexa as Campus’ school-record holder in search of his first 6A medal. His 11-dive mark of 477.65 in mid-January at one of Campus’ home meets is the state’s best this season by 2.60 points over reigning 6A champion and Holmes’ friend, Wichita Northwest senior Giani Benoit.
 
Holmes has elevated his skillset – and his scores – after a productive offseason that included the camp and workouts with Benoit and other Wichita-area divers. The head-first element – or lack thereof – was a product of the background Holmes brought to the sport.
 
“Being a trampoline kid, he did not like landing on his head,” Campus diving coach Steve Crum said. “He needed to work on that.”
 
Holmes added that to his arsenal along with some new dives, and has refined some of the more complex dives he attempted last year while making it through the preliminaries at state. After routinely scoring in the 380s in 11-dive competitions as a sophomore, Holmes has been above 400 in all but one 11-dive meet this winter, when he scored 399.30.
 
“He’s been more focused on what we’re trying to do and what he’s trying to accomplish,” Crum said. “You can really tell by how hard he works.
 
“He’s added a couple dives that are higher degree of difficulty. He already had some really high DDs last year and he’s still doing those dives. He’s just doing them much better now. He’s done the work to clean them up and that’s made a huge difference as well.”
 
Holmes posted his state-best 477.65 in his first 11-dive meet this season, surpassing the previous school record of 469.35 set in 2019 by Jake Burke, who placed eighth in 6A that season. Holmes also scored 462.10 at a home meet in late January, 445.65 at the Derby Invitational and 417.60 in winning the Ark Valley-Chisholm Trail Division I title last week.
 
Holmes finished fifth out of 25 divers in late January at the Shawnee Mission Invitational, a competition won by Olathe East junior Ellis Malone and which included two-time reigning Class 5-1A champion Alex Moeller of St. Thomas Aquinas, who finished third. That gave Holmes an introduction to this year’s state meet location and a reminder of last year’s state experience.
 
“That was pretty big for me,” Holmes said of the 2024 state competition in which he made it through the preliminaries in eighth place before eventually dropping two spots. “I’d never been on a stage that big before. I felt like I was going to finish strong. Those next two rounds weren’t the best, but I still had a good finish and now I’m hoping this year I can actually medal.”
 

MAIZE’S JOHNSON, RIFE LOOK TO PARLAY STATE EXPERIENCE INTO GOLD

Maize coach Tedd Gibson is grateful to have two high-performing swimmers in senior Kooper Johnson and junior Zach Rife.
 
It also makes him feel a little greedy.
 
“A lot of teams have none,” Gibson acknowledged after the midseason Andover Invitational, where Johnson and Rife each won two individual events, capping a busy week in which the Eagles competed in three meets. “There’s days it’s magical and there’s days it drives me crazy because I’m thinking if we just had one more.”
 
The numbers game can be problematic for Maize when it comes to reeling in team goals like a league title. The Eagles settled for third at the Ark Valley-Chisholm Trail I meet Saturday behind Derby and Campus as the Panthers captured their seventh consecutive league championship.
 
But Johnson and Rife delivered in a big way, capturing two individual titles apiece and boosting Maize to first-place finishes in the 200-yard medley relay and 200 freestyle relay. Junior Kellen Doty added a victory in the 100 butterfly to give the Eagles gold in seven of the 12 events.
 

Johnson and Rife were All-Class 6A first-team performers last season, helping Maize finish eighth at state. Johnson took third in the 200 individual medley and sixth in the 100 breaststroke, while Rife duplicated third-place finishes from his freshman year in the 100 and 200 freestyles.
 
Both were part of two freestyle relay teams that also medaled.
 
This week, Johnson’s individual schedule includes the 200 IM, in which he’s the top seed after swimming a league-meet record 1:56.86 to win on Saturday. He’ll also return to the 500 freestyle after finishing third at state in the event as a sophomore.
 
“For me, it’s really about just honing in my races and making sure I have those down,” Johnson said of his approach in the days leading up to state. “And working with my team to get some relays in order.”
 
Rife enters as the top seed in the 100 freestyle with a time of 47.27 and the 200 free in which his time of 1:41.11 at the Campus Invitational in mid-January set a school record. Rife followed that a week later with a school-record time of 4:41.29 in the 500 free.
 
“It’s for sure a confidence booster,” Rife said of his best swim in the 200. “I went into that Campus meet knowing it’s a great pool and I’d have a chance. I set 1:40 or 1:41 as the time I wanted to hit, and I knew if I could I’d be in a great place.
 
“(Class) 6A has some great freestylers but a lot of them are up (in the Kansas City area), so I have to set individual goals for myself just to make sure I’m a top competitor with those guys up there.”
 
Johnson and Rife complement their high school swimming as competitors for Wichita Swim Club. Doty, another club swimmer, will be Maize’s other entry in individual events after qualifying in the 100 butterfly and 100 backstroke.
 
“Everybody at state wishes they had one more kid, but we literally will make our noise with these guys,” Gibson said. “They don’t want to go and just make the podium. They want to win and they want to win their individual events.”

 

MANHATTAN HOPES TO PARLAY LEAGUE MOMENTUM INTO ANOTHER 6A STATE TROPHY
 
When Manhattan finished tied for third in the Class 6A team standings a year ago at the state meet, Indian coach Alex Brown admitted it was a bit of a surprise.
 
“We didn’t go into state last year thinking we’d get top three,” Brown said. “But crazy things happen at state. So always aim high because you never know what’s going to go down.”
 
Returning the bulk of the placers that helped produce that trophy-earning finish, one might expect Manhattan’s expectations to be pretty lofty this weekend at the Shawnee Mission Aquatic Center. But even with his team coming off a dominant showing at last week’s Centennial League meet, Brown is keeping them somewhat tempered.
 
“Blue Valley North, Northwest and West all have quite a few kids back and added in some really good new kids as well,” Brown said of the teams that finished first (North), fifth (West) and seventh (Northwest) a year ago at state. “Our goal is go in and place as high as we can. We went down to Kansas City for the Shawnee Mission Invite three or four weeks ago and it was basically the state meet minus a couple 6A schools, but with some of the best in 5A there, too. We were eighth at that, so not quite where we wanted to be.
 
“But with (the Centennial League showing) and getting everyone fully healthy, we want to make a push to get in the top five again. You never know what happens.”
 
Manhattan certainly has as much momentum as anyone going into state. At last week’s league meet, the Indians won every single swimming event, most of them by pretty convincing margins. Seniors Max Steffensmaier, Willow Graves, Ethan Balman and Kaiser Wymer each recorded a pair of individual event victories and teamed with a handful of promising sophomores for different combinations on all three relay victories.
 
Graves, Steffensmaier and Balman each earned medals in individual events at last year’s state meet with Graves coming away with two, a third-place finish in the 500 freestyle and fourth in the 100 breaststroke. Steffensmaier was fifth in the 200 individual medley and Balman was fifth in the 100 butterfly. The three also helped Manhattan to top-five finishes in all three relays.
 
Manhattan did lose its top state place from a year ago, Mariano Palacian, who finished runner-up in the 50 and 100 freestyles. But the senior group had improved their rankings going into this year’s meet to keep Manhattan in the trophy conversation.
 
Steffensmaier has the third-fastest time in 6A in the 200 IM (1:59.52) and the seventh-fastest time in the 100 backstroke (55.23). Graves is currently seventh in the 500 freestyle (5:00.71) and 100 breaststroke (1:01.92) and Balman is fifth in the 100 butterfly (52.87) and 11th in the 50 freestyle (22.12).
 
Manhattan also has the fourth-fastest 200 medley relay.
 
“I’m really excited for state this year,” Graves said. “I’m hoping I can push further than I did last year and score higher. (League was a really good morale booster). Last year, we did pretty good at league and had a lot of really good races and had some good momentum going in. But our first day was pretty tough. This year, especially with us seniors, we’re going to leave it all in the pool and we’ve got some great momentum going in, winning league and winning every event.”


CLASS 5-1A
 

DE SOTO’S GRAMMER CHASING COOLEST DIVING FINISH
 
It wasn’t a background in gymnastics, or swimming for that matter, that drew Jasen Grammer into joining the De Soto swim team as a diver his sophomore year.
 
Nor was it a desire to give up his career as a wrestler.
 
Instead, his motivation came from an all together different place.
 
“I really just started diving because I wanted to show off at the public pools over the summer,” Grammer said. “That’s the real reason.”
 
While he may have started out simply trying to be cool at the summer pool, Grammer has evolved into one of the state’s top high school divers. Ranked No. 1 in Class 5-1A going into this weekend’s state championship meet at the Shawnee Mission Aquatic Center, Grammer has positioned himself for perhaps his coolest diving feat, winning a state gold medal.
 
“I’m really looking forward to it,” he said. “I want to go out with a bang.”
 
De Soto didn’t field a diving program until Grammer opted to give up wrestling as a sophomore to give the new sport a try. He had immediate success, capturing the United Kansas Conference title and qualifying for the Class 5-1A state meet, finishing sixth. 
 
That immediate success was a big motivation.
 
“I realized it was something I could get really good at and possibly go to college for,” Grammer said. “My sophomore year going to state, I was really nervous, shaking every dive.”
 
Last year, Grammer improved immensely and went into the state meet ranked No. 2 in Class 5-1A with a season-best of 418.45, trailing only Andover’s Braden Larson on the 11-dive list with Larson having a regular-season best of 430.65.
 
But at state, Grammer was slightly off and didn’t come anywhere close to his season-best score, posting a 332.10 that relegated him to a fifth-place finish.
 
“With how I did at state, I was happy I took fifth,” he said. “With the skill of the dives I did, it wasn’t enough to really have me up there. I wasn’t hitting quite like I wanted, but I still did good.”
 
The path to a gold medal this season won’t be easy. The top-five finishers from last year’s state meet all are back this season, including two-time defending champion Alex Moeller of St. Thomas Aquinas. Also back are Andover’s Larson, who finished third last year, runner-up finisher Gage Cooper of Andale and fourth-place finisher Justin Pullen of Bishop Miege.
 
Though Grammer hasn’t seen Larson or Cooper at a meet this season, he’s extremely familiar with Moeller and Pullen. His diving coach at De Soto, Jeannette Giangrosso, also coaches Moeller and Pullen and other divers in the Kansas City metro area, all working out together during the season.
 
“I get to practice with Justin and Alex every day,” he said. “It helps a lot because we push each other to get better and better in practice every single day. We all get along and are really good friends. We all respect each other and have fun and don’t take it super seriously, I guess.”
 
Pullen is ranked No. 3 in Class 5-1A this season with a best of 436.55 while Moeller is fourth with a season-best of 432.70. Grammer had been ranked behind them and Andale’s Cooper, who is No. 2 at 460.15, before turning in a career-best score at last week’s United Kansas Conference meet.
 
He finished his 11-dive meet with a total of 465.30 that vaulted him to the No. 1 spot in 5-1A and third-best overall in the state behind 6A divers Kenton Holmes of Campus (477.65) and Giani Benoit of Wichita Northwest (471.10) with Benoit the defending 6A state champions.
 
Grammer credited the addition of a front one-and-a-half with a double twist dive to his repertoire as being a big key to his higher scores this season.
 
“I added my hardest twister, and that helped a lot with the DD (degree of difficulty) portion, jumped from a 2.1 to 2.6,” he said. “That helps a lot and I’ve improved a lot. My overall technique has gotten better and the difficulty of my dives has improved drastically. It’s just overall improved.”
 
He’s also spent the season a little more free of mind. He decided before the season that he wasn’t going to dive in college, taking off some of the pressure he felt last season. He also went back out for wrestling this winter and went 8-2 at 165 pounds.
 
“I just got the urge to do it again, I guess,” he said.
 
With his wrestling season complete, Grammer can turn his focus on finishing off his diving career and he comes in with plenty of momentum after his big showing at league in winning his third straight UKC crown.
 
“It really helped my confidence a lot knowing that I could possibly get a score like that at state,” he said. “I’m not trying to inflate my ego too much with that score. I’m just going to go out and do my best and see how things play out at state. It’s going to take me hitting all my dives the best I can and not messing up any of them.
 
“It’s going to be really tough. It’s something I’m going to have to earn for sure.”
 

 
LANSING’S MENDEZ SHOWS OFF VERSATILITY, BUT FOCUS STILL ON DISTANCE FREESTYLE RECORDS
 
There’s no denying that Lansing’s Zach Mendez will go down as one of the top distance freestylers in state swimming history.
 
He first served notice he could be a force when he won the Class 5-1A 500-yard freestyle as a sophomore, winning by four and a half seconds in 2023 while also placing fifth in the 200 freestyle.
 
Mendez came back last year and further strengthened his legacy in not only defending his 500 title by a whopping 22, but setting the state meet record as well with a time of 432.58 during prelims that took nearly a second off the previous record of 4:33.52 set by Seaman’s Zeke Metz in 2018. For good measure, he cruised to a state title in the 200 freestyle as well.
 
But let it be known, Mendez is far more than just a distance freestyle specialist. Which the Lion proved throughout the 2024-25 regular season.
 
Not only does Mendez go into this week’s Class 5-1A state meet at the Shawnee Mission Aquatic Center with the top time in his state championship events of a year ago, he also owns the fastest times in Class 5-1A in five other events – the 200 individual medley, 50 freestyle, 100 freestyle, 100 butterfly and 100 backstroke. The only individual swimming event he isn’t ranked No. 1 in is the 100 breaststroke, where he’s third.
 
“It was something that was on my radar this year, but definitely wasn’t the goal,” Mendez said of going after the top times in every event. “I really just wanted to make sure I swam every event this year and see if I’m improving in those events. … It’s really awesome but I really just come out and try to swim my fastest and do a good job for my team. The times, whatever I go, I go.”
 
Mendez added his 5-1A leading times in the 200 individual medley and 100 butterfly at last week’s United Kansas Conference meet with his 200 IM time of 1:53.15 the fastest overall in the state by more than four seconds. He also helped the Lions to relay wins in the 200 medley and 200 freestyle, skipping the 400 freestyle relay where he’s also anchored the Lions to the top 5-1A time in the state in that event as well.
 
With seemingly multiple options at his disposal for another double-gold state showing, Mendez hasn’t wavered in where his focus lies for state. He’ll return in both the 200 and 500 freestyles, looking to get the 200 record that eluded him a year ago and lower the 500 mark he set last year.
 
If there’s any doubt he can do it, he’s already gone faster in both events this year than he did at state a year ago. His season-best time of 1:38.81 in the 200 is more than a second better than the state-meet record of 1:39.92 set by Wichita Collegiate’s Adam Sandid in 2022. His 4:29.36 in the 500 this year is more than three seconds faster than his state-record time of a year ago.
 
Both times are also better than the 6A meet records in those events, a 1:38.58 in the 200 set by Shawnee Mission South’s Grady O’Connor last winter and a 4:31.92 set by Olathe East’s Ben Bravence in 2011.
 
“The goal right now for state is I just want to be an All-American and I have the best shot at that in the 200 and 500,” he said. “Those are my events and I’m going to stick with that for one more year. I really want the 200 record and I’m already under it so I’m really excited for state. It’s going to be a lot of fun.”
 

BLUE VALLEY SOUTHWEST POSITIONS ITSELF FOR CHANCE AT WINNING 1ST STATE TEAM TROPHY IN A DECADE

Blue Valley Southwest had its best team finish at state in 2015 when the Timberwolves finished as the state runner-up in 5-1A. That was a year after the team had brought home the program’s first ever team trophy at state with a third-place finish.

Blue Valley Southwest spent much of the next decade sitting outside the top 10 teams on the state leaderboard. That is until the team saw a resurgence with its fourth-place finish in 2021. The Timberwolves took fifth in each of the next two years before moving back up to fourth at last year’s state meet.

Blue Valley Southwest has not significantly added to either its depth or its elite swimmers compared to its roster last season, but each of the teams ahead of them has faced some roster turnover that seemingly has opened the door. Now the Timberwolves not only have a chance to bring home a top-3 trophy, there’s a real chance that they might have enough to knock off the two-time reigning champs.

Andover is still sitting in a great spot as the Trojans try to complete the three-peat. The team will head to state with the most entries on the psych sheet with 28. 

The Timberwolves are next on the list, although there's a sizable gap as they have 23 entries. But they do have advantage, at least on paper, over Andover with their position in the relay rankings.

Blue Valley Southwest holds the top time in the 200 free relay, with their time of 1:29.93 giving them a 1.54 second lead over Winfield as the next best time. The Timberwolves also have the second best seed time in the 400 free relay.

Blue Valley Southwest is led by junior Dane Weninger and senior Topher Thompson. 

Weninger took third in the 500 free and fourth in the 200 free last year. He is currently top-3 on the 5-1A leaderboard for both of those events heading into state this year, including the No. 2 spot in the 500. 

Of course, Weninger will most likely be battling for second, seeing as two-time reigning champ Zach Mendez of Lansing holds a 23 second advantage over Weninger’s best time this year.

Mendez holds a similarly large lead for the best time in the 200 free. If Weninger keeps that race on his schedule this year, he’ll also need to close the two-second gap that Kapaun Mt. Carmel’s Henry Studnicka holds over him for the No. 2 spot.

Thompson enters state with the top time in the 50 free. His 21.80 gives him a slight advantage over Andover Central junior Tyler Voros. He also sits in fifth in the 100 free with a time of 49.28. It won’t be easy to close the gap with Wichita Collegiate sophomore Karim Sandid at the top of the leaderboard with a seed time of 48.71, but the possibility of sliding into the top-3 is not an out-of-reach goal for Thompson.

Blue Valley Southwest has a few major holes, including no swimmers in the 200 individual medley and the 1-meter diving event, while not having anyone in good position to make the A-final in the 100 back and 100 breast.

But with strong relays and two top performers like Weninger and Thompson, the Timberwolves really just need a few of the swimmers sitting on the edge of the top-8 in their individual races to successfully make the A-finals cut. If they can do that, the Timberwolves will have a shot to move up that team leaderboard on Saturday.