McPherson High Swimmers Earn PR’s and State Consideration Times in Saturday’s Opening Meet

By Grant Barrett, Ad Astra Radio

MAIZE, Kan. – The MHS Boys Swimmers kicked off their season in Maize on Saturday, where they finished 8th out of 10 teams. Matt Cotton begins his fourth season as Head Coach, and coming into the season he said, “We’re an extremely young team, still wet behind the ears so to speak, and we’ve been fighting cold/flu season as much as anything as we try to get up to speed, but hopefully this first meet will help shake off some of the jitters and rust.”

This season the Bullpups return 3 state individual qualifiers and the 400 freestyle relay team that qualified for state. In pursuit of their 5th league title since 2017, the Pups will be without Wesley Wurm and Ethan Burger, who were both individual state qualifiers last season as seniors.

The handful of returners teamed up for state consideration times to begin the 2022-23 season. Most of the stand-out performances came from the members of the 200 Medley & 200 Free relays; Reid Schuckman, Cristian Garcia, Tytus Reed, and Gabe House, earning State Consideration times in both events. Coach Cotton said that was, “Something that took us the better part of last year to achieve.” Cotton listed Gabe House as a newcomer who he expects to contribute this season, along with Ethan Elder, and Palmer Heskett, all entering their sophomore year. Cotton said, “Gabe House had a massive day to kick off his sophomore year, showcasing a summer of work with some big PRs in the the 100 Butterfly and 5th overall in the 100 Breastroke.

Reid Schuckman put in an impressive PR to begin his senior campaign for 6th in the 100 freestyle, Cristian Garcia put up a gritty swim for 6th in the 100 breaststroke.

Tytus Reed normally leads the squad, but Cotton mentioned that he came down with a head cold after having already been entered in two of the hardest swims on the docket, the 200 IM and the 100 Butterfly, but still managed to grit through it and bring in a decent haul of points for the team.

Coach Cotton said, “Some of our returners stepped up for some big swims to go out and pick up some points in what turned out to be a very quick field today, and some of our young guys gave a glimpse of what they might be capable of in the future, but for the most part we remained well off the pace of the top teams.” He concluded by saying, “We’re going to try to learn from this meet and get better, but we’ve got a lot of work still to do this year to reach our goals. Thankfully, I have no doubt these guys are up to the challenge.”

Below are the team scores from Saturday: