FEDERAL WAY — Three North Olympic Peninsula divers finished in the top 12 at the state 2A diving championships, led by Sequim’s Mathew Craig, who finished fifth and Port Angeles’ Andrew Methner, who came in sixth.
Methner made a huge leap in the finals, as he was 10th after the semis. Craig also moved up one spot from sixth after the semifinals.
Also finishing well was Crescent’s Micah Scott, who finished 12th in the state. Scott trains with the Port Angeles swim and dive team.
Craig and Methner ended up separated by less than three points. Craig finished the meet with 281.85 points, while Methner had 279.10 points. Scott finished with 258.65 points. State champion Nic Malinowski of Steilacoom finished with 360.85 points.
Also picking up points for Port Angeles was swimmer Cameron Butler.
Butler finished 12th in both the 200-yard individual medley with a time of 2 minutes, 6.12 seconds and in the 500 freestyle with a time of 5:04.10.
In the preliminaries Friday, Port Angeles swimmers that didn’t qualify for the second day of swimming Saturday included:
• 200 medley relay (Alex Hertzog, Butler, Henry Shaw and Taylor Martin), 22nd, 1:55.56.
• 100 butterfly – Hertzog, 23rd, 1:01.91.
• 100 backstroke, Hetzog, 22nd, 1:02.69.
• 400 freestyle relay (Martin, Shaw, Hertzog, Butler), 19th, 3:43.93.
Also in the prelims, Sequim had two relay teams:
• 200-yard freestyle relay (Jax Thaxton, Deven Biehler, Kaleb Needoba and Alex Berikoff), 17th, 1:38.69.
• 400-yard freestyle relay (Thaxton, Murray Bingham, Keedoba and Berikoff), 21st, 3:44.62.
As a team, Port Angeles finished 23rd at state with 23 points, while Sequim was 25th with 14 points. Crescent finished 32nd with five points. Anacortes won the state meet with 249 points. North Kitsap was seventh with 124.5 points.
Peninsula Daily News
