The Olympia girls swim and dive team placed third at the Class 4A District 3 meet at Curtis High School this past weekend, and the Bears will be well represented at the state meet in two weeks.
All three of Olympia’s relay teams qualified for state, headlined by the 200-yard freestyle relay team of Preita Sanders, Aila Swanson, Paulina Mueller and Nastasia Moniodis, finishing in third place at 1 minute, 44.83 seconds.
The 400-yard freestyle relay quartet of Preita Sanders, Campbell Patterson, Moniodis and Priya Sanders took fourth at 3:49.17. Additionally, Priya Sanders, Mueller, Lily Boyle and Swanson helped the Olympia 200-yard medley relay team finish in fifth at 1:56.01.
It’s the first time Olympia has qualified for state in all three relay events since 2022.
Priya Sanders punched her ticket to state in two events as a freshman, placing third in the 200-yard freestyle finals at 1:59.15 and fourth in the 500-yard freestyle finals at 5:15.70.
Sophomore Preita Sanders will make her state debut in the 100-yard freestyle after placing third at districts with a time of 54.24 seconds, and she qualified in the 50-yard freestyle with a fourth-place time of 25.14 seconds.
Moniodis earned a spot in the state meet for the 100-yard freestyle by placing fifth at districts at 56.49 seconds.
Swanson was nail-bitingly close to clinching a state bid in the 100-yard breaststroke as she finished in sixth place in the A finals at 1:13.27, but she held the seventh-fastest time with only the top six qualifying for state. She also took seventh in the 50-yard freestyle finals at 25.57 seconds.
Mueller placed seventh in the 100-yard breaststroke finals at 1:14.74, and Boyle took eighth in both the 200-yard individual medley (2:24.15) and the 100-yard butterfly (1:05.88) finals.
Patterson finished eighth in the 100-yard backstroke finals at 1:05.95 and 13th in the 500-yard freestyle finals at 5:58.04.
Also competing in the 500-yard freestyle finals was senior Normandy Carter, who finished in 16th place at 6:19.76. Carter also swam a time of 2:16.72 in the 200-yard freestyle finals to place 14th.
On top of her state-qualifying time in the 100-yard freestyle, Moniodis earned ninth in districts in the 50-yard freestyle at 26.11 seconds in the finals. Sophomore Amulya Keitheri Cheteri secured two top-15 finishes, taking 11th in the 200-yard freestyle finals at 2:15.22 and 13th in the 100-yard freestyle finals at 1:00.00.
Sophomore Olivia Smith ranked 12th in the 100-yard butterfly finals at 1:05.78, and fellow sophomore Anna Ho took 16th in the same event at 1:08.28.
Mueller clinched a 14th-place swim in the 50-yard freestyle finals at 27.02 seconds. Olympia’s lone diver Isabella DiBenedetto-Campos finished her senior campaign with a 16th-place score of 131.45 in the district meet.
Olympia scored a total of 270 points, topped only by champion Curtis’ 408 points and Kennedy Catholic’s 312.
“It was a great team meet for us, with most swimmers moving up from their seeding before the meet. The majority of our swims were lifetime or season bests,” Olympia head coach Henry Valz said.
The state meet will be held from Friday, Nov. 13 through Saturday, Nov. 14 at the King County Aquatic Center in Federal Way. Prelims for 4A swimmers begin on Friday at 1:30 p.m., and the finals will start at 1:45 p.m. on Saturday.
