The Manhattan High girls swim team placed second with a total of 488 points at the Salina Central Invite last Thursday. 

“I think we did pretty good with that second overall, really nice,” senior Talia Francois said. “There were a lot of teams there.”

In the 50 yard freestyle, senior Sydney Hicks placed third and sophomore Audrey Conley placed seventh. In the 100 yard freestyle, Hicks placed fourth. In the 100 yard breaststroke, freshman Ruth Perez placed first, sophomore Avery Inman placed fourth and sophomore Paige Chauncey placed fifth. In the 100 yard backstroke, Conley placed seventh. In the 100 yard butterfly, sophomore Sophia Steffensmeier placed first, Francois placed third and sophomore Soledad Rodriguez placed ninth.

“I think we did well. We all cheered each other on and supported each other which is the most important part,” Steffensmeier said.

In the 200 yard freestyle, Steffensmeier placed first, Chauncey placed third and junior Brooke Newcomer placed eighth. In the 200 yard individual medley, Perez placed first, Francois placed fourth and Rodriguez placed sixth. In the 500 yard freestyle, Inman placed third.

In the 200 yard medley relay, the team of Francois, Perez, Steffensmeier and Hicks placed first and the team of Conley, Inman, Rodriguez and junior Kylie Koerner placed fifth. 

“A lot of people did [really] well,” Francois said, “our relays went pretty good.”

In the 200 yard freestyle relay, the team of Perez, Hicks, Francois and Steffensmeier placed second and [grade] Grace Dixon, Koerner, Newcomer and Chauncey placed fifth. Finally, in the 400 yard freestyle relay, the team of Rodriguez, Conley, Inman and Chauncey placed fourth.

“I know that we were close, like seeded to some other teams,” Francois said, “So that was kind of scary.”

The team plans to continue on with their main goal of dropping times, and working harder for each meet. Many of the swimmers plan to work on endurance and getting into better shape to be able to swim faster and get better times and places.

“I think we can work on endurance a little more like finishing our races, especially working on the second half of them. And then of course our starts and turns can always use work. When we go there’s no blocks. So that’s been a little bit of a challenge,” Steffensmeier said, “but I think the girls are doing really well with it, the ones who haven’t started before. So that’s honestly inspiring to see them getting up and trying new things, when they don’t have practice yet.”