By Gary Ogle
gogle@wbcowqel.com
Eight swimmers from Crawford County used the district swim meet podium at Bowling Green State University last week as the pedestal to propel themselves to this week’s state swim meet at C.T. Branin Natatorium in Canton.
Galion’s Sam DeNero justified his lofty season-long ranking as one of the area’s best freestyle sprinters. DeNero won the 50-free at the districts with a time of 21.5 and will be seeded fourth in that race at the Division II state swim meet. DeNero also qualified for the state meet in the in the 100-free with a third-place district finish with a time of 47.38. DeNero will be seeded 11 in the prelims at Canton in the 100.
DeNero won’t be the lone Tiger in the state meet. Teammates Chad Karnes, Sam Rigdon and Luke Eisnaugle were fourth in the 200-yard free relay at the district meet. Their time of 1:31.2 earned them a 15th seed at the state meet.
Colonel Crawford will be represented again at the state meet by the girls’ quartet of Madison Sharp, Megan Lyons, Callie Ruffener and Chloe Grove will compete in two relays in Canton in the Division II state meet.
The four finished fourth in both the 200-yard and 400-yard free relays. They will be seeded 15th in the 200 with a time of 1:41.51 and 21st in the 400 with a time of 3:44.72.
The Division II state meet preliminaries are Feb. 26 and the finals are Feb. 27. The meet has a 5 p.m. start time both days.