Scheduling change hurts Carson's boys swim team

Carson High's boys swimming team walked away from Saturday's High Desert Championships at the Carson Aquatic Center feeling a little slighted.

The Senators, who went undefeated in the regular season, were upset by Reno 394-392, and the second-place finish could be attributed to a change in the diving schedule.

Originally, the schedule called for the divers to compete at 8 a.m. at the University of Nevada, but then it was moved to 1 p.m. Carson's prom was Saturday night on the MSS Dixie, and prom-goers had to be on a bus at 6:15 p,m., and obviously it didn't leave the divers time to compete and still get back to Carson and get ready.

"I had talked to Chris (McCombs, the diving referee) about our kids, and he said make an accomodation to let them dive during warm-ups," Carson coach Monica Weaver said. "Another coach had an issue with that."

So, no diving points and a disappointing second-place finish.

Carson got firsts from Kevin Dyer in the 500 free and freshman Tim Grunert in the 100 breastroke.

Dyer trailed the entire first half of the race, albeit just a few meters behind McQueen's Mack King. Dyer kept creeping up on King, and finally caught and passed him with approximately 100 yards to go to record his fastest 500 time of the season.

"It (the 500 swim) felt good," Dyer said. " I just wanted to beat him (King). I always seem to do that. It takes me half the race to get going. Everybody gets tired and I just catch them."

Dyer also took a third in the 100 butterfly with a time of 56.42, two-plus seconds behind Reno's Fritz Roepke.

Grunert started his day with a fifth-place finish in the 200 IM, clocking a 2:13.90. He came back later and won the breastroke in 1:03.48 . Reno's Chris Tung was a distant second.

Paul Chang was third in the 100 free at 50.34. Jacob Cornwell was fourth in the 100 back in 1:01.47, William Struble was fifth in the 100 back in 1:03.73 and Jacob Branco was fourth in the 200 free in 1:59.47.

The Senators picked up first-place points in the 200-yard medley relay and second-place points in the 400 free relay.

Cornwell, Grunert, Dyer and Chang swam on both relay squads.

The Carson girls finished third in the regular season, but dropped a spot and finished fourth to Reno, Galena and Spanish Springs.

Tatum Boehnke was the top individual for CHS, tying for second in the 100 fly (1:03.60) and finishing second in the 500 free (5:31.18).

"They (both events) went pretty well," Boehnke said. "I was a little tired from a hard week of practice. I'm excited for next week's zone meet. I thought we did well in the 200 free relay."

Boehnke swam anchor and helped Carson to a 1:45.27 in the relay event. Other members of the squad were Erin Chang, Jamie Showalter and Elizabeth Lewis. Boehnke also swam a leg on the 400 free relay squad which took second in 4:01.78. Julia Lapham took Chan's place in that event.

Showalter grabbed a third in the 100 back in 1:06.91 and Chang was sixth in the 100 free in 1:01.56. Lewis was eighth in the 50 free in 28.00.

Weaver was pleased overall with the effort of both squads.

"They all swam well," she said. "We had a few make their qualifying times for zones next week and some others improved their times. We're looking for swimmers to improve their times and place higher than the ranking they came in with."