Prelims set tone for sectional

Saturday, February 6, 2016

PLAINFIELD -- On Saturday Plainfield will play host to 11 area schools, including North Putnam, South Putnam and Greencastle for the 2016 IHSAA girls' sectional tournament. Thursday the schools held their preliminary round with some exciting results for Putnam County teams.

Greencastle's medley relay team of Mallary Meyer, Amelia Smith, Kelly Hansen and Corrie Romer placed fourth and South Putnam's team of Katie Jo Beasley, Alex Fanning, Megan Arnold and Katie Hansel will be at seventh.

Grace Gillen will be racing in the 200-freestlye thanks to her fourth-place finish Thursday, while Romer and Amelia Smith will be side by-side in the 50-freestlyle due to their sixth and seventh-place times.

Meyer earned the best time in the 100-butterfly with a time of 59.69, while Romer just squeezed into the eighth spot in the 100-freestyle. Gillen picked up the eighth spot in the 500-freestyle.

"Our swimmers were amazing in preliminaries (Thursday), with times falling from start to finish," GHS coach Kent Menzel said. "I am very excited for Mallary Meyer's top seed in the 100 fly as well as her second seed in the 100-back, and look forward seeing great swims from our other finalists Amelia Smith, Corrie Romer and Grace Gillen. Mallary, Amelia, Corrie, and Grace will also be powering both our medley and 200 free relays which are well seeded for finals. This sectional gets faster and faster every year and I could not be more pleased with our swimmers who rose to that challenge."

Greencastle will also be in contention for the 200-freestyle relay as its team of Smith, Jessica Roberts, Gillen and Romer earned second. The Eagles earned fifth with its team of Arnold, Ariana Warf, Beasley and Hansel. North Putnam's freestyle relay team of Gabriela Louie, Kaelynn Abner, Sydney Sims and Lainey Willis just missed the cut and will be racing in the consolation round.

Meyer just missed the top spot in the 100-backstroke by eight tenths of a second and Smith will compete in the 100-breastroke as she earned sixth at prelims. South Putnam's Fanning just miised the cut by two-tenths and she took ninth.

In the final event, the freestyle relay, North Putnam's Krisara Dill, Victoria Louie, Lauren Freije and Abigail Spencer took eighth beating out both their Putnam County rivals.

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