Bellevue repeats as district champions

Wolverines swim team is preparing for the state meet

BY JOE LIVARCHIK
REPORTER NEWSPAPERS

This time last year, the Bellevue Wolverines secured the KingCo conference and Sea-King district swim and dive titles en route to the program’s first state championship in nearly two decades.

On Saturday, the Wolverines found themselves in a similar scenario, coming off winning the KingCo championships a week earlier. By the day’s end, with another meet down and another win under their belt, only time was left to tell if Bellevue’s history was set to repeat this year.

Bellevue won the 3A Sea-King district trophy for the second year in a row, registering a team score of 273. Bainbridge was second at 263 and Mercer Island rounded out the top three with a score of 213. Bellevue coach Andy Hay said winning the district title was a reflection that everyone on his team contributed in the effort.

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“We didn’t have a 200 free relay because we got disqualified yesterday [during preliminaries]. The thought that we were actually going to win today was almost nonexistent in my mind because we didn’t have that relay. I mean, that’s 40 points,” Hay said. “We figured it out. We’re happy and humble about it.”

The Wolverines took the other two relay events, opening Saturday’s meet with a record-breaking win in the 200 medley relay. The team of A.J. Rossman, Thomas Eggenberger, Andrew Lee and Zack Rossman set a new district record with a winning time of 1:37.23, three-hundredths of a second better than the previous record, also set by the Wolverines, in 2014. Bellevue was nearly five seconds better than Bainbridge in the 400 free relay, winning at 3:12.32.

Eggenberger won a district title in the 200 IM (1:56.67), with teammates Lee placing third (2:01.13) and A.J. Rossman fourth (2:01.6). Zack Rossman won the 50 free (21.64), while teammate Dan Prang finished fifth (22.29).

Andrew Boden was runner-up in the 100 free (47.25) and 200 free (1:44.23), both behind Franklin’s Dean Nguyen. Nguyen won the 100 free title with a time of 46.8 and the 200 free at 1:43.47. Nathan Shao was runner-up in the 500 free (4:52.46) to West Seattle’s Seryozha Dahl (4:84.04). Shao also placed third in the 200 free (1:45.63).

Mitchell Eggenberger was second in the 100 back (53.29) behind Bainbridge’s Garrett Waite (53.04), and placed third in the 500 free (4:53.96). Lee was third in the 100 breast (59.62), A.J. Rossman was fifth in the 100 back (54.38), Prang was sixth in the 100 free (50.13) and Kim Calvin placed 10th in the diving event with a score of 247.25.

Scoring conference and district wins in consecutive weeks, the pieces seemed to be in place for another championship run by the Wolverines. Though Hay said his swim team was under no assumptions about how the upcoming state meet would unfold.

“If this meet is a barometer for what we can do at state, I’m optimistic, but the chickens aren’t hatched yet,” Hay said. “Bainbridge, Mercer Island, they’re all very talented organizations. They’re going to get up for state just like we are. We’re going to rest a little bit and see what we do.”