Manhattan High Boys Swim and Dive wrapped up their regular season with a first place finish, scoring 620 points, besting Garden City’s 467 at the Great Bend Invite on Jan. 29. The Indians topped the podium in five races: the 200y individual medley, 50y freestyle, 100y freestyle, 200y freestyle relay and 400y freestyle relay. On Jan. 3, at the Emporia Invite, MHS fell just short of Winfield High School by 7.5 points due to a turn violation that led to a disqualification. The Indians were still able to win the 200y medley relay and the 500y freestyle.
“Everybody had their best ever time at Emporia,” head coach Alex Brown said. “On our final relay, we had [junior] Jack Dunn, [sophomore] Cameron Pfannstiel, [senior] Collin Bunger and [sophomore] Wallace King. They hadn’t qualified that relay yet, and they all had season best times. We have a couple other guys that are super close that we anticipate that they’ll be able to qualify.”
The Indians have had success all season long, but at the past few meets, they’ve reached a higher level.
“We’ve improved a lot and gotten much better as a team,” Pfannstiel said. “I’ve surprised myself with my times, because they’ve gotten a lot better.”
Later this week, on Feb. 12, the Indians will look to defend the Centennial League title. Unlike some sports, MHS’ team league results have no effect on whether they make it to State on Feb. 20-21. State is a much more individual-focused competition and qualification is decided by a cutoff time. Brown sees League as a challenge, especially against Washburn Rural. It will be a gauge of the team’s potential with State just around the corner.
“League will be really tough,” Brown said. “The one team ranked ahead of us [Washburn Rural], it’ll be really hard for us to beat them, but we know that we can be competitive with our races and everything. And then at State, our number one goal is just making it back for the finals day on Saturday.”
Dunn has aspirations for swims to qualify for State and to continue his swimming career.
“I’m going for State in my 200y free and my 100y fly,” Dunn said. “I’m going for the cuts, but I know I can make them. I’m going for a sectionals cut, which is another meet outside of the high school season, that is very imperative for me. I want to swim in college and I need to go to this meet to get scouted by coaches.”
Competing at the League and State levels requires a higher caliber of training than ever.
“I’ve been grinding this week,” Dunn said. “It’s what we like to call ‘fun week’, where the yardage is really high and the practices are really specialized and really hard. Next week we’ll cut back so that we can make time on Thursday.”
