The Durango High School boys swimming team made sizable strides this season, and it showed at the first day of the Colorado High School Activities Association’s Class 4A Boys State Swimming & Diving Championships held at the Veterans Memorial Aquatic Center in Thornton.
Two Durango relay teams dropped times, and one almost did enough to qualify for the finals.
The boys 4x200 freestyle relay team of Max Thilow, Michael McCorry, Benjamin Aupperle and Aaron Clark finished 22nd in the preliminaries and just missed making the finals after they swam it in 1 minute, 39.27 seconds. The Demons dropped 2.58 seconds from their seed time of 1:41.85 and almost did enough to sneak into the finals, as the top 20 teams qualify. Clark was the only member of the relay team who had experienced swimming at a state championship as a member of the 200-yard medley relay team that qualified last season. The other three had not swam at state before, but Demons’ head coach Tom Joyner said they performed well for their first time.
Mullen had the top preliminary time in 1:27.33, Greeley West was second in 1:27.95 and Broomfield was third in 1:28.16.
Joyner was proud of the way they competed and thought that it was a significant step forward for the program.
“The boys performed admirably and put everything they had into it,” Joyner said. “We dropped some big times today, and the guys went out there and performed incredibly well. It’s just an incredibly fast meet. I’m very happy with where we are at; we’ve got a very young squad, we’ve got another year to mature and things should hopefully look better next year.”
The same members of the 4x200 also competed in the 4x400 freestyle relay a few events later. DHS finished in 29th but still dropped nearly one second from their seeded time of 3:49.77 with a time Friday of 3:48.90.
Discovery Canyon had the fastest preliminary time in 3:09.97, Mullen was second in 3:12.07 and Montrose was third in 3:15.44.
The Demons had their largest team in years after there were 13 swimmers and divers, and the squad is only losing two seniors. All four qualifiers are expected to return. McCorry and Aupperle are sophomores, while Thilow and Clark are juniors. There were five sophomores and six juniors.
Joyner was recognized as the Western Slope League’s coach of the year at the Western Slope High School Swimming and Diving Championships last week.
“It’s always nice to be recognized by your peers, and thinking back to the girls season, Mark Fleming was named the state’s diving coach of the year and Kylie Behn was named diver of the year,” Joyner said. “Even in our small little place in the state, we definitely are effective for what we have.”
Joyner believes that the state experience be a good stepping stone for the future.
“Is this momentum? I hope so, absolutely,” Joyner said. “Time will tell, but with 13 boys in the pool this year, younger kids coming up, and every year, I always pick up two or three kids that have never done it before, like (Aupperle) and (McCorry) on our state squad this year. I think we’re heading in the right direction and am looking to see what we have in store for next year and beyond.”
bploen@durangoherald.com
