Thank the divers, thank the swimmers, thank the coaches for what was another fine finish for the Kennedy Catholic Lancers, bringing home the fourth place trophy for the WIAA 3A state swimming and diving championships at the Weyerhaueser King County Aquatic Center pool in Federal Way Saturday.

And, for the Lancers, it wasn't a bringing home of the trophy easily, to note. They did just well enough in their final race of the night, the 400-yard freestyle relay, to tie Bellevue for that trophy finish. Lancers coach Sean Prothero let the Wolverines take home the one available fourth place trophy.

"Ours will come in a week, they said," said Prothero.

Mariah Crockett, a captain who helped out in relays and swam in individual events as well, was happy afterward and quick to point out, along with crying-happy teammate Amanda Thach, that the Lancers' 400 relay win was huge. And unexpected.

"We weren't expected to do well in the 400 relay," said Crockett, whose sister, Hannah, would have helped, too, at state but was out sick. Also, Emily Fenster, who won the 200 freestyle at state last year, transferred schools and some others like Annie Benoit transferred, and Gabby Lindblad, eighth in the 100 butterfly and ninth in the 500 free, left, too. So, that was a large gap to make up and this Lancers team did it, starting with that 400 relay.

Thach, arm around Crockett, continued the conversation, "We were seeded seventh for prelims on Friday and we took third. Last night, we dropped five seconds off our time."

Thach had just swam the 100 backstroke two events earlier (event 10), too, and a lot of swimmers just don't have the energy to go and do another race like the 400 relay (event 12) so soon.

Thach did it.

"I told myself, 'I'm going on pure adrenaline,'" said Thach. "Keep up the Kennedy tradition."

Only the first to fourth place teams get to bring home some hardware to their school's trophy case.

The Lancers won state back-to-back years in 2007 and 2008, third last year, and fourth this time around.

The last five years the best performing, placing team in 3A at state is the Lancers, including a second place finish in 2006 at state.

Also, some of those high Lancers places (maybe all) don't happen without diving, as that event garners a lot of points.

This year Ashley Knox and Paige Greely finished second and third place at state, and Charlotte Dittmar 11th, with their coach, Travis Thompson, and assistant Jill Farley, helping them all along the way.

Knox, only a sophomore, finished second place with 372.00 points while teammate Paige Greely was third, and that's how they finished last year but with more points this year.

"They both improved, but the field was better this year, too," said Thompson. "All three (Dittmar included) improved."

Knox scored 348 points last year at state in diving while Greely said she made 325.

For this year's diving, Knox just went steady in second after the first day's round of diving (eight dives on Friday) so that on Saturday her final three dives went easily. She wanted back one dive where she scored lower than her customary 5.5 and 6.5 scores per dive.

"My back 1 1/2," she said. Just didn't go right, was all.

And Greely's situation was a little more complicated, if not challenging, as she ended up third but didn't start that way coming into the final three dives.

"I didn't like being in sixth place after the first round of dives and had to move up to third," said Greely.
Greely and Knox did great diving the second day, getting points added to their first day totals. Knox scored 261.55 after the first six dives while Greely had 231.20. Greely dove a little better even, as, if numbers are added up. Knox scored 110.45 her final three dives while Greely's second day point total was 116.30 to get to both diver's 300-something final scores.

"I was going for it," said Greely, who maybe chose to upping her degree of difficulty of dives no doubt in day two to get to the points she got. And, as it turned out, for her team's final score, it was good thing Greely did go for it. or no trophy.

Moving on to swimming, there was some bad news in the midst of all the good news. In Thach's 100 backstroke race, she was in it to win it, thrusting off the blocks forward on her back and holding the lead against defending 100-yard back champion Nikki Cannon of Hudson's Bay by a half body length after the first 50 yards. And she held that lead after they turned at the wall but only by a head length. Then Cannon went backstroking by Thach in a furious finish, winning the closest race of the 3A meet. Cannon won 56.65 to 56.85 over Thach.

But that close loss, coupled with a seventh place finish in the 100 free (52.78), seemed like a distant memory when the announcement of a team score tie for the fourth place trophy was made.

Thach was emotional after the meet, crying around teammates as others listened and hugged her and listened, like Crockett.

"Amanda is so amazing, we couldn't have done it without her," said Crockett, who, along with herself were the senior glue that melded this team, according to coach Prothero.

"Oh, you're so amazing," shouted back Thach, with moist red eyes.

"We did great," said Thach. "Sean is great. He's super at putting up with us."

"Yeah," said Crockett, smiling and hugging her teammate. "We are out of control."

Thach was still spilling out words after this emotional ending.

"And I couldn't have done it with Rod Rombauer, my West Seattle YMCA swim coach," said Thach, who anchored the 400 free relay and swam the 200 medley that took fifth for the Lancers.

Others that did well getting the Lancers points would include ones like Vanessa Moffat, a freshman on those two relays aforementioned, as well as individually getting ninth (first place in the consolation final) overall in the 500 free (5:15.55) and eight in the 200 free final (2:00.15). Moffatt was on the 200 medley and 400 free relays, too.

Crockett was second in the consolation final of the 50 free (25.20) as well as on both state final relay teams as was Erin Anderson on the 200 medley and Audrey Griggs on the 400 free.

Crockett didn't say the exact words, but she said she couldn't do it, as well anyway, without the support of her sister, Hannah, a sophomore on the Lancers who swam at state last year as previously mentioned.
"She was texting me during the meet, asking how things were going, encouraging me, I love my little sister," said Crockett, who loves working with kids as she volunteers her time helping out Arbor Heights, the White Center-based Seattle Summer Swim League team, mostly working with the youngest ages like her real little brother, Sal, 8.

Mariah Crockett and Thach were bugging Prothero about something after the state meet, too, saying the words "12-25" over and over again.

'Yeah, they give me a hard time sometimes about my workout, saying they are not too creative, and, that is something we do in practices," said Prothero.

"12-25s are fun every time," said Thach, listening in.

"Yeah," said Crockett.

And, for the Mount Rainier Rams, their mission was accomplished pretty well in the 4A meet since they have too many students in their school and can no longer compete at the 3A classification in sports.

First-year Rams coach Kyle Hovak, had good things going on this season, including getting fifth place at state, just one shy of getting the trophy.

This season, in the SPSL South North Division, the Rams won that league before winning districts. Teams they beat were pretty good 4A competitors like Gig Harbor, Thomas Jefferson and Todd Beamer.

This season's been good for the Rams as senior Mackenzie Marrs, who helped her team to a third place finish in the 400 free relay (3:38.31), spoke of her coach.

"He's really brought us together as a team this year," said Marrs, whose teammates on that 400 free relay include Megan Kawaguchi, Erica Young and Courtney Larson.

"We dropped four seconds this weekend (in the 400 relay)," said Larson, who swam well at state individually, too.

The Rams also took fourth in the 200 medley relay, with Larson, Kawaguchi, Marrs and Rachel Webster in 1:52.56.

Kawaguchi, only a freshman, also finished eighth in the 100 butterfly (59.35) and ninth overall (first in the consolation final) for the 100 backstroke (59.85). And, Larson, a sophomore, tied for seventh in the 100 back (1:00.60) and Marrs was fifth in the consolation final of the 100 free (54.60).