by 
Will Newman at the start of his backstroke finals swim. Vince Apuron | Sea Lions
The 2014 San Manuel Miner State Team. Vince Apuron | Sea Lions
Arizona high school swimming is divided into two divisions. High schools with enrollment of more than 1,800 students are division I and high schools with less than 1,800 students are classified as division II. Both divisions held the State Championship Meet at the Skyline Aquatic Center in Mesa on Nov. 7 and 8.
In division II, San Manuel High School was one of the smallest schools to have swimmers qualify to compete at the State Championship Meet. Relay teams must achieve qualifying times and have one of the fastest 24 times to qualify. The Miners had fast enough times in both the 200 Freestyle Relay and 400 Freestyle Relay to qualify 24th and 23rd respectively. For individual events, swimmers must achieve the qualifying times and be among the fastest 32 times to qualify. Freshman Will Newman achieved qualifying times in four events that ranked him in the top 10. Since swimmers are only allowed a maximum of two individual events at any swim meet, Newman selected to compete in the 200 yard Individual Medley (IM) and the 100 yard Backstroke as his individual events (also qualified in the 100 yard Butterfly and the 500 yard Freestyle).
Preliminaries were held on Friday to determine who would advance to the championship (top eight) and consolation (ninth-16th) finals on Saturday. Newman had an outstanding swim to earn a top eight spot in the 200 IM finishing in 2:07.11, improving on the school record time he already held. The 200 Free Relay team of Colbey Stratton, Taylor Woods, Jacob Christian and Will Newman swam a great race and moved up to 18th place overall, but did not make the top 16 cut to swim in finals. A few minutes later, Newman swam the 100 Backstroke, to finish ninth in preliminaries with a new school record time of 56.99. Later in the meet, team captain Colbey Stratton led off the 400 Freestyle Relay with a school record 100 Free split of 54.66. The rest of the relay team; Woods, Christian, and Newman, all had great splits, and the team finished in a school record time of 3:39.20 on the way to a 20th place finish.
In the finals on Saturday, Newman improved his time in the 200 IM to 2:06.67 to finish seventh. In his second individual events, Newman swam to an 11th place finish in the 100 Backstroke with a time of 58.00.
Coach Alex Gort was extremely proud of the team’s performance at the meet, “The Boys swam their best at the State Championship Meet and improved several school records. It was a great ending to an awesome Miner swim season.”
There are news or informational items frequently written by staff or submitted to the Copper Basin News, San Manuel Miner, Superior Sun, Pinal Nugget or Oracle Towne Crier for inclusion in our print or digital products. These items are not credited with an author.
by by