Broadcasting Life

N.D. STATE BOYS SWIMMING PRELIMINARIES:
Minot continues dominance

Grand Forks swims well on first day

By Brad Schlossman

Herald Staff Writer


It's the first day of the North Dakota state boys swimming tournament, and some of the suspense already is gone.

Coaches will be pushing their swimmers to compete against the clock and not for the team title. Everyone already knows who will bring that home.

Minot has dominated North Dakota competition all year long. The Magicians have good talent in the program and just as important, they have the numbers, too.

"We've got a good feeder program," Minot coach Ken Disher said. "We've got a good middle school program that gets kids interested in swimming at that age."

Minot's success is the envy of the other programs in the state.

Minot won nine of the 12 events in the West Region meet last weekend in Mandan. That led the way to a team title. The same dominance is expected this weekend in the Hyslop Sports Center in Grand Forks.

The preliminaries were held Friday afternoon at Hyslop and the finals start today at 1:30 p.m. The diving will start at 11 a.m.

"We have a talented group of swimmers," Disher said. "It's a senior dominated team. We have a bunch of seniors out there."

The Magicians have had their share of good teams, but Disher said none of the other teams have anything on this year's squad.

"This one has to rank right up there at or near the top," he said.

With its success, the Magicians have lost a number of top swimmers because of graduation. And two years ago, they lost star Matt Lowe after his junior year because he opted to try for the 2004 Olympic team. Lowe is now swimming at NCAA Division I University of Texas. But even so, the Magicians haven't had a problem replacing them.

"It's been a real good run," Disher said.

Disher said he's not focused on seeing the Magicians dominate as a team, though. "I'm more interested in seeing the boys swim fast," he said. "I hope they get their fastest time of the year here."

Grand Forks has big day

Jake Gerszewski took first in the 200 freestyle preliminary and second in the 100 backstroke leading a strong day for Grand Forks swimmers.

"We had an incredible day today," Grand Forks coach Brent Newman said. "The guys swam as well as they could today. We had a number of guys move themselves up and place and we had zero disappointing swims."

Zerek Kroll and Ian Peterson both swam well in the 200 and 500 freestyle prelims. Peterson finished third in the 200 in 1:50.40 and third in the 500 with a time of 5:04.92. Kroll finished in fifth in the 200 in 1:51 and fourth in the 500 in 5:05.44.

"Zerek dropped over 18 seconds in the 500 freestyle," Newman said. "Both Ian and Zerek did exceptionally well."

Other top-eight finishes for the KnightRiders were Ty Nimens in the 200 IM (third, 2:05.99) and the 100 breaststroke (fifth, 1:04.06); Jared Zygarlicke in the 100 butterfly (seventh, :59.9); and Ethan Nimens in the 500 freestyle (eighth, 5:22.19).