Lady Collect Four Top-Five Finishes and Personal Bests at Last Chance Meet
| Place | Participant | Relay Wins | Individual Wins | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 0 | 1 | null | |
| 2 | 2 | 0 | null | |
| 3 | 0 | 2 | null | |
| 4 | 0 | 5 | null |
NEWCASTLE, Wyo. - Newcastle High School collected one individual victory and four top-five finishes at the Last Chance swimming meet Thursday, Oct. 29, at the CCSD Aquatic Center in Gillette. The ladies recorded personal bests in all but two swims.
Allie Lunstra delivered the victory in the 200-yard freestyle, touching in 2:13.37 to edge Campbell County's Doma Mckeighen by 0.17 seconds. Lunstra closed with a 33.06-second final 50 yards, improving on both middle splits. The winning time bettered the listed 3A qualifying standard of 2:26.80 and the 4A standard of 2:17.46.
Macy Steber came agonizingly close to state qualification while setting two personal records. Steber placed eighth in the 50 freestyle in 29.34 seconds, cutting 0.22 seconds from a previous best and finishing just 0.15 seconds above the listed 3A standard. A fifth-place finish in the 100 freestyle brought another milestone: Steber's 1:05.42 lowered a previous yard-time best by one second and missed the qualifying standard by only 0.16 seconds.
Madalyn Francis also narrowly missed qualifying in the 50 freestyle, placing ninth in 29.49, just 0.30 seconds above the mark. The senior added a fourth-place finish in the 100 backstroke in 1:21.38, lowering a season best by one second. That swim helped give Newcastle two of the top four finishers in the backstroke.
Lillian Lopez led that backstroke effort with a third-place finish in 1:18.58. The sophomore's work on technical details paid off with a 4.5-second improvement over the personal best established just one week earlier at the conference meet, leaving Lopez about two seconds short of qualification. Lopez also finished 14th in the 50 freestyle in 34.27.
Cleared to compete after a neck injury kept Chevy Bryan out of the water for a month, the sophomore returned with a 14-second personal-best improvement in the 100 backstroke. Bryan finished sixth in 1:27.93. In the 50 freestyle, Bryan led a heat and placed 13th overall in 33.04, only a couple of seconds off an earlier season best despite the extended absence.
Natalie Dean rounded out Newcastle's personal-record performances by cutting approximately one second in both of her freestyle races. Dean finished 16th in the 50 freestyle in 34.75 and eighth in the 100 freestyle in 1:17.86. Newcastle competes next at the state meet Thursday and Friday in Gillette.
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