The Durango High School girls swimming team wrapped up its season Friday with solid finishes at the Class 4A state swimming and diving championships in Thornton.
Mckenzie Rion competed in two event finals Friday after a strong preliminary performance and scored Durango’s top finish at the state meet.
In the 200-yard freestyle, Rion qualified for the A final in 10th with a preliminary time of 1 minute, 59.57 seconds. Rion, however, improved her time in the finals and ended up finishing eighth in the event. After the first 50, Rion was in last after swimming a 27.63 split. She moved into ninth during the second and third splits and then pased one more swimmer on the home stretch to finish eighth and score 15 team points.
Rion also qualified for the B final in the 100 freestyle and improved her time in the finals as well. Rion swam a 55.87 to place 18th in the event.
Erin Knight reached the 500 freestyle B finals after swimming her fastest time of the year in the prelims, a 5:34.49. On Friday, she was even faster and ended up placing 18th in 5:32.35.
Durango also competed in the B final of the 400-freestyle relay after qualifying in 19th.
The relay, however, was slightly slower on Friday and ended up finishing 20th in 3:58.45. The relay team included Angela McManus, Cassidy Hill, Olivia Becher and Maren Clay.
Senior diver Alexis Behn, meanwhile, also placed at state for the Demons. Behn started the state the state meet with a 10th-place finish in the diving competition.
Durango had several other swimmers compete in state on Thursday. In the 50 free, McManus finished 38th in 26.44. McManus also raced in the 100 backstroke and finished 26th in 1:06.15.
In the 200 free relay, Emma Ebner (28.33), Erin Lawrence (27.59), Clay (26.83) and Anna Lawrence (27.25) placed 25th in the relay’s fastest time of the year: 1:50.00.
The 200-yard medley team, composed of Clay (31.75), Olivia Becher (37.82), Knight (31.14) and McManus (26.26), also finished 25th in 2:06.97.
As a team, Durango finished 22nd out of 30 teams at state with 36 points. Heritage won the 4A title with 636 points, which was more than second-place Windsor (307) and third-place Pine Creek (299.5) combined. League foe Grand Junction finished 10th with 128.
