THORNTON — While it wasn’t quite the performance the Legacy boys swimming team was looking for, the Lightning saved their best for last at the 5A state swim meet Thursday at the Veterans Memorial Aquatic Center.
Despite coming in with several top-5 seeds, the only event in which Legacy finished that high was the meet-ending, 400-yard freestyle relay.
With a time of 3 minutes, 5.74 seconds, a season-best by two seconds, the Lightning finished fifth in the finale, pushing them up to fifth in the team standings as well with 195 points. They did it with a team made up of sophomores and juniors who will all be back next year.
“It wasn’t quite what I expected,” Legacy head coach Leigh Dodd said. “But that is why you swim and you don’t just go off psych sheets. We went really hard at our district meet and to come back two weeks in a row, especially after a pandemic where we didn’t swim for almost a year, that is a skill you have to learn. We got here. We fought. We closed out the meet with a brand new best time by almost two seconds.”
Legacy’s second-best finish came in the 200 free relay where the Lightning finished sixth in 1:25.77. They were seventh in the meet-opening 200 medley relay in 1:34.68.
Individually, the Lightning were led by junior Kyle Raskay who turned in the best solo performance with a seventh-place finish in the 200 individual medley in 1:55.56.
“I felt good on it,” Raskay said. “I went very fast out on my fly. I still need to work on my breaststroke a little bit. But I am happy with my overall time. It is very close to my best time.”
Raskay also finished 12th in the 100 butterfly in 50.89.
Another double finisher for the Lightning was sophomore Tegan Barrier, who was 10th in the 50 free in 21.49 and 12th in the 200 free in 1:44.40.
Another sophomore, Sam White, finished eighth in the 500 free in 4:46.35 despite admitting he wasn’t at 100%.
“I wasn’t really feeling the best before the race, but I just wanted to execute for the team and do the best I could,” White said. “If you give 100% effort, you can’t ask to do any better.”
Also for the Lightning, junior Jack Tran was eighth in the 100 backstroke in 52.61.
Monarch’s best finish came from a seventh-place performance in the 200 medley relay along with a 12th-place finish in the 200 free relay and 13th in the 400 free relay.
Individually for Monarch, Luke Corson was 13th in the 100 free.
For Fairview, Layton Sealman tied for 10th in the 100 breaststroke and Zachary Waldrip was 15th in the 100 free. The Knights were 18th in the 400 free relay.
Fairview was 15th and Monarch 16th in the team standings.
Boulder’s Teague Mayer was 15th in the 100 backstroke.
