Wednesday, April 17, 2024
AUSTIN — It all came down to the final event for the Friendswood boys as to how they would finish at the Class 4A state swim meet. The Mustangs 400-yard relay team of Jack Maloy, Justin Bertelsman, Daniel Theall, and Matt Wall was in the finals. The foursome had already broken the FHS school record with a time of 3:10.65 in the prelims. The question was could they swim that fast in the finals after 24-hours of rest?
When the finals were announced, head coach John Little knew that his quartet had a chance to, not only win a gold medal in that relay event, but the boys team also had a chance to finish second in the state which would be the highest finish ever by one of his boys teams.
"The boys have finished sixth at state four times so this is the best finish we have ever had," Little said.
Friendswood entered the final event trailing Frisco (100), Humble Kingwood Park (100), and Texarkana Texas (99) with Frisco Wakeland leading the pack with 133 points. Friendswood had 95 points for fifth place.
As they did in the preliminaries, the 400-yard relay team knew they had to step up one final time to make FHS history.
"We came into this knowing that we were kind of our own secret weapon," Jack Maloy said. "Nobody saw us coming, and we knew that was going to be the case. Last year we showed up, and we weren't super strong here. This year we knew exactly what we wanted and we did just that."
What they did was set another FHS record in the 400-yard relay with a second place time of 3:10.24 to finish just behind Wakeland who claimed gold in 3:09.46. The second place finish gave Friendswood 34 points to vault them past Humble Kingwood Park by two points 133 to 131 for the team silver medal. Frisco Wakeland won the 4A title with 173 points.
"Kids swam great," Little said. "At the end of a meet to have a relay do that well means they were in really good shape and had a lot of heart. I'm proud of them."
The Friendswood girls also had a good showing finishing 10th in the state with 89.50 points as San Antonio Alamo Heights won the girls team trophy with 202 points to beat second-place Frisco (176), and third-place Houston Stratford (157). Perennial state-power Dallas Highland Park finished fifth this year with 140 points.
Here's how the Friendswood swimmers did at state.
The Friendswood girls quartet of junior Cassandra Nagle, freshman Sydney Gurry, sophomore Gina Fossati, and freshman Sadie Wilson won a bronze medal with a time of 1:49.80 for their third place finish.
The girls foursome of Fossati, Wilson, junior Heidi Henricks, and Gurry placed ninth in the 200-yard free relay (1:40.85).
Gina Fossati placed 13th in the 200-yard IM (2:14.67) and 9th place in the 100-yard butterfly (58.84).
Sadie Wilson placed 10th in the 50-yard free (24.90).
Rachel Wright placed 10th in the 1-meter diving (287.10 points).
Sydney Gurry placed 6th in the 100 breaststroke (1:06.64).
Justin Bertelsman placed 6th in the 500-yard free (4:43.21).
Michael Claunch placed 13 in the 1-meter diving with 299.80 points.
Jack Maloy picked up a silver medal in the 100-yard backstroke (51.77) while placing 9th in the 100-yard butterfly (51.55).
Matt Wall finished 9th place in the 200-yard free (1:43.36) and the 100-yard free (46.61).
Michael Flower finished 10th in the 100-yard backstroke (53.23).
James Tomerlin finished 14th in the 100-yard backstroke (55.24).
There were 15 Friendswood swimmers and two divers who participated in the state meet. Over 50 teams participated across the state.