Skyline High Sets Meet Record, Wins Washington 4A Title

Washington Boys’ High school State Championships – 4A

• February 15th-16th, 2019
• Prelims/Finals, 25 yards, A/B final, 8 teams per finals
• 4A is the biggest schools of the 3 classifications in the state
• King County Aquatic Center, Federal Way, Washington
• Live Results

After huge graduations for defending state champions Camas High, and the lost of two-time state champion Eric Wu, the 2019 Washington 4A State Championship was wide open.

Skyline High won only 1 event at the meet, the very first one, but in a very competitive, back-and-forth meet between them and Curtis High School, that one win was enough to take the 2019 title.

In that opening relay, the team of Samuel Shauf, Colin Huynh, Jeremy Kim, and Joost Christoffles combined for a 1:34.47 in the 200 medley. That broke Issaquah’s Meet Record of 1:34.83 set at last year’s meet, though Bainbridge Island still holds the State Record in 1:32.64.

A young Curtis team took control of the meet in the next race, the 200 free, thanks in large part to a win by freshman Patrick Keough in 1:41.03. That’s his best time by almost 8-tenths of a second. That ranks him 15th in the country this year among 15 & unders in the event. Curtis also had the 8th place finisher, sophomore Matthew Dingess; 9th place finisher, junior Joe Melin; and 12th place finisher, sophomore Keegan March.

4 scorers meant Skyline would be playing catchup until the 50 free, where a pair of A-finalists put Skyline back in the lead.

Ironically, it was the 100 free where Curtis, with two A-finalists of their own, took the lead back, and they grew it again in the 500 free.

Skyline would take the lead back for good in the 100 back, growing it in the 100 breast and hanging on in the closing 400 free relay to secure the title.

Other Event Winners:

• North Creek senior Brandon Stride finished 6th in the 200 IM last season in 1:54.87 as a junior. This season, he demolished that time, swimming 1:50.26 to win the state title. For the Johns Hopkins commit, that time would rank him 12th in NCAA’s Division III this season so far. Stride would later win the 100 breaststroke in 56.61. This is the 5th-straight season in which the 200 IM champion has gone on to win the 100 breaststroke.
• In the men’s 50 free, Tahoma’s Nathan Ainsworth won by the narrowest margin, beating out Moses Lake’s Zach Washburn 20.97-20.98. Ainsworth win was his team’s first points of the meet.
• Hanford senior Skyler Younkin won the boys’ 100 fly in 59.18, beating out the freshman Keough, who placed 2nd in 59.29.
• Wenatchee junior Connor Elwyn won the boys’ 100 free in 45.80, followed by the sophomore Washburn with double sprint silver. Washburn took 2nd in 54.91.
• Kamiak’s sophomore twins Vlad and Slava Gilszmer went 1-2 in the boys’ 500 free in 4:35.12 and 4:40.61, respectively. Vlad improved his time by 3 seconds from last year’s state meet, while Slava dropped 12 seconds from finals last year to finals this year (he was 4:47 in prelims last year). This 500 free will be fun to watch for the next 2 years: the top 5 finishers were all sophomores, followed by 2 freshmen. There were only 2 senior scorers in either final.
• Moses Lake won the boys’ 200 free relay in 1:26.40. The team was in 4th place before sophomore anchor Cole Lindberg split 20.74, the 2nd-fastest split of the entire field, to pull his team into first place. The relay order was Brett Jorgensen (21.96), Noah Heaps (22.14), Dylan Bond (21.56), and Cole Lindberg (20.74). The fastest split of the field came from Nathan Ainsworth, who anchored Tahoma’s 8th-place relay in 20.67.
• In another race full of youth, with the top 7 all being underclassmen, Elwyn won his 2nd individual race of the meet, taking the 100 back in 50.43. Newport sophomore Kevin Kyi took 2nd in 50.59.
• Kamiak High School’s relay of Maxwell Fang (46.66), Alex Kirby (48.05), Slava Gilszmer (48.19), and Vlad Gilszmer (46.83) combined for a 3:09.73 to win the boys’ 400 free relay. The fastest split of the field, by more than a second, was Cole Lindberg‘s 44.93 anchor on Moses Lake’s 3rd-place relay.
• In the non-scoring adaptive 50 free, Cascade junior Henry Nguyen won the 50 free in 26.82. That broke his own State Record in the event from last season by 1.7 seconds.
• Ben Stanton broke the State Record in the adaptive 50 back, winning in 32.86.