The Hornets 20th place finish at the Class 3A state swim and dive championships Saturday speaks well for the future.
Enumclaw brought four swimmers, competing in multiple events, to the King County Aquatic Center in Federal Way, and all moved on to Day 2 and the consolation finals.
First-year Coach Jesse Nitz said it was tough to top the Hornets’ stellar district performance, but they managed to equal, if not, best their times in most cases.
“Everyone qualified to return the following day for finals,” Nitz said. “Mitchell (Petellin) in particular had a great state meet dropping lots of time in both his sprint races and finally going under 50 seconds in the 100 free, a goal he's had as long as I've known him.”
Petellin, a senior, raced to a 49.47-second finish in 100-yard freestyle prelims and finished 11th Saturday. He also earned 15th in the 50 free and held down legs of the Hornets’ two relay teams.
The Hornets’ 400 freestyle relay of Petellin, Brandon Vick, Bryce VanHoof and Ethan Horan finished 11th. The foursome also finished 16th in the 200 medley relay.
VanHoof, a senior, sprinted to a 14th-place finish in the 200 individual medley and posted a 22nd-place finish in the 100 breaststroke. Horan, a freshman, placed 15th in the 200IM.
Vick, a junior, was 15th in 200 and 500 freestyle. His times were consistently fast, but not as fast as the week before at districts when he set an EHS 500 freestyle record of 4:57.05, besting Micah Hammond’s 1994 mark of 4:57.70.
“He's had his eyes on that 500 free record for years,” Nitz said. “He started out the season faster than expected and kept getting steadily faster despite being broken down more and more. He knew he was going to do something special when we rested.”
Vick just missed the record in preliminaries at districts, which made the record a bigger target in the finals.
“It was such an exciting race to watch,” Nitz said. “I was keeping track of his splits during his record breaking swim and could tell that he was right at the goal pace. He finished that race like he wanted it, and the look on his face when he saw the time was priceless.”
Nitz said VanHoof also had a stunning swim at districts in the 200 IM. “It was much faster than he thought he could ever go.”
The Hornets are already looking forward to next season.
Nitz said the underclassmen will have to fill the shoes of seniors VanHoof and Petellin, but he thinks they are up to it.
“Horan has a very bright future ahead of him,” Nitz said of the freshman. “Brandon will also be back next year and has already been talking about lowering his record more and possibly taking down a few other names from the record board. We have a very strong group of underclassmen who will undoubtedly step up to keep Hornet swimming going strong!”
Story written by Brenda Sexton for Enumclaw High School’s Athletic Department.
