Seven members of the Pagosa Springs High School Lady Pirate swim team will represent the school at the 2025 Girls Swim and Dive State Championship next week in Thornton.
Aubrey Gerdel, Grace Cram, Chloe Gantt, Leah Blackman, Marlowe Hedgecock, Asia Gorman and Gianna Shaeffer will compete in two events at the state meet: the 200-yard medley relay and the 200-yard freestyle relay.
The state meet is scheduled for Monday and Tuesday, Feb. 10 and 11, with preliminaries set to begin at 5:30 p.m. on Feb. 10 and finals slated to begin at 5:15 p.m. on Feb. 11.
“We are working on the little things that can help drop a little more time,” coach Heather Miller wrote in an email to The SUN about how the team is preparing for the season’s final meet.
That includes, she notes, “watching head position on a breakout or a tighter streamline to shave off another second or two from the relays.”
She adds the swimmers are also working more on sprinting since everyone is swimming 50-yard stretches.
The Lady Pirates capped off the regular season by taking to the water for the Southwest Conference Championships in Grand Junction on Jan. 31 and Feb. 1.
“The meet was phenomenal,” Miller wrote. “Nearly all swims were personal best times and those that were not had best times in other events or on Saturday.”
The Lady Pirates advanced to the finals in several events at the meet and notched a new achievement for the team.
“Everyone really stepped up and pushed outside of their comfort zone,” Miller wrote. “All swimmers were able to qualify for finals meaning everyone got to swim again on Saturday which is a first for us.”
In the 200 medley relay, the squad of Hedgecock, Blackman, Gantt and Gorman finished 13th in the preliminaries with a time of two minutes, 18.39 seconds. The squad improved in the finals, swimming a time of 2:16.16 to finish ninth and earn 18 points for the team.
“The 200 medley relay was very exciting because both relays moved up from the seeding and the A relay was able to win the consolation final heat moving from 13th to 9th and dropped over 2 seconds,” Miller highlights.
The squad of Gerdel, Shaeffer, Cram and Katelyn Fricke took 16th in the prelims with a time of 2:31.96. The squad finished 15th in the finals with a time of 2:34.33 to earn four points for the Lady Pirates.
In the 200-yard freestyle prelims, Shaeffer took 21st with a time of 2:51.90, with Kaiya Lyons following in 22nd with a time of 2:53.33.
Four Lady Pirates competed in the 200-yard individual medley, with one making the finals.
In the prelims, Gantt finished 13th with a time of 2:46.01, sending her to the finals. In the finals, Gantt finished 11th and earned six points with a time of 2:45.39.
Gorman took 20th in the prelims with a time of 3:03.16. Blackman followed in 21st with a time of 3:22.00. Snell took 22nd with a time of 3:32.85.
Four Lady Pirates competed in the 50-yard freestyle prelims. Hedgecock took 22nd in the prelims with a time of 29.71 seconds. Cram finished 28th with a time of 31.98 seconds. Gerdel finished 30th in 32.55 seconds. Lucia Rivera finished 36th in 40.52 seconds.
In the 100-yard butterfly, Gantt finished 11th in both the prelims and the finals, swimming a time of 1:14.15 in the prelims and 1:14.29 in the finals to earn six points. Bella Gutierrez finished 20th in the prelims with a time of 2:01.54.
In the 100-yard freestyle prelims, Hedgecock finished 23rd with a time of 1:07.40. Fricke finished 27th with a time of 1:14.22. Brooklyn Trujillo finished 30th with a time of 1:30.97.
Four Lady Pirates competed in the 500-yard freestyle, with two making the finals. Cram finished 14th in the prelims with a time of 6:55.63 before taking 13th in the finals with a time of 6:54.91, earning four points. Gorman took 15th in both the prelims and the finals with times of 6:56.90 and 6:58.55, respectively, earning two points. Lyons finished 22nd in the prelims with a time of 7:53.77, with Gemma Slingerland following in 23rd with a time of 7:55.76.
“Gemma Slingerland and Kaiya Lyons had big time drops in their 500 free cutting over 60 seconds total between the 2 of them,” Miller highlights.
Both Lady Pirate squads made the finals in the 200 freestyle relay.
The squad of Hedgecock, Gantt, Gorman and Cram finished 12th in both rounds with times of 2:01.49 in the prelims and 2:02.5 in the finals to earn 10 points.
The squad of Fricke, Shaeffer, Blackman and Gerdel took 13th in both rounds. The crew swam a time of 2:14.83 in the prelims and a time of 2:15.04 in the finals, which earned eight points for the Lady Pirates.
In the 100-yard backstroke, Trujillo finished 30th in the prelims with a time of 1:44.51, with Gutierrez following in 31st with a time of 1:50.67.
Blackman took 15th in the 100-yard breaststroke prelims with a time of 1:28.19, which sent her to the finals. In the finals, she finished 14th and earned three points with a time of 1:29.70.
Shaeffer finished 24th in the prelims with a time of 1:35.30. Slingerland finished 26th with a time of 1:39.08. Rivera finished 29th with a time of 1:51.40.
Both Lady Pirate relay squads made the finals in the 400-yard freestyle relay.
The crew of Fricke, Lyons, Slingerland and Gerdel finished 12th in the prelims with a time of 5:18.70 before shaving several seconds off that time to finish 11th in the finals with a time of 5:13.85. That finished earned 12 points for the team.
The crew of Rivera, Gutierrez, Trujillo and Snell finished 14th in the prelims with a time of 5:56.63. The squad also shaved seconds off, finished 13th in the finals with a time of 5:52.94, earning eight points.
The Lady Pirates finished with 81 points, placing them ninth overall at the 10-team conference meet, which included 3A, 4A and 5A teams.
That total, according to Miller, is more points than the team has scored at the conference meet in the past.
randi@pagosasun.com
