West Sound's boys swim teams entering season's final stretch
Less than two weeks remain in the high school boys swim/dive season. For West Sound's Class 4A and 3A competitors, all that's left is the state championships at King County Aquatic Center in Federal Way on Feb. 16-18.
For West Sound's 2A and 1A teams (North Kitsap, Olympic, Kingston, Klahowya), there's one more hurdle to clear before state: the West Central/Sea-King Bi-District meet, which is scheduled for Friday-Saturday at Mount Tahoma High School. North Kitsap won last year's district title, scoring 229 points to edge Steilacoom (223) and Sammamish (221), before placing third at the 2A/1A state meet.
Bainbridge, which placed third at the 3A state meet in 2022, is coming off a victory at the West Central District 3A meet at Mount Tahoma on Feb. 4. The Spartans totaled 371 points to finish ahead of Gig Harbor (244). Central Kitsap placed ninth with 63 points.
Winning a total of five events, Bainbridge began the district meet with wide margin of victory in the 200-yard individual medley relay. Freshman Carter Cox combined with seniors Thomas Witty, Curtis Stewart and Jason Nordgren to post a time of 1 minute, 37.47 seconds, nearly six-and-a-half seconds faster than runner-up Gig Harbor. In the 200 free relay, it was Stuart teaming with senior Finn Wenker, sophomore Aidan Cole and freshman Mathias Bang-Knudsen in a winning time of 1:29.52.
Individual winners were Nordgren, Stewart and Witty. Nordgren touched the wall at 21.56 to win the 50 free by nearly a full second (River Ridge's Anthony James was second in 22.50); Stewart claimed first place in the 100 butterfly in 53.34, edging Peninsula's Hunter Hobbs (53.54); and Witty swam 59.67 in the 100 breaststroke to take first ahead of teammate Jason Geddes (59.95).
This year's state meet begins Feb. 16 with diving preliminaries and finals. South Kitsap's Karter Warner and Ronin Wilson, who placed second and ninth at districts, will be competing for the Wolves in the 4A event. Warner placed seventh at state in 2022 as a freshman.
Swimming preliminaries are Friday, Feb. 17, and the finals are Saturday, Feb. 18, with 4A beginning at 8:30 a.m., 2A/1A beginning at 1:30 p.m. and 3A beginning at 6 p.m. West Sound has no returning state champions from 2022. North Kitsap's Isaac Beers, who won the 100 free and 100 backstroke events in 2A last season as a senior, is now competing for Columbia University.
This article originally appeared on Kitsap Sun: West Sound's boys swim teams entering season's final stretch
