LENEXA, Kan. – The McPherson High School Boys Swimming team closed off the season Feb. 20-21 at the 5-1A State Championships in Lenexa.
McPherson qualified for four events in total: The 200 Medley Relay, the 400 Freestyle Relay, and two individual swims for Cooper Bohme, the 200 and 500 Freestyle.
The team started with the preliminaries on Friday, Feb. 20. The 200 Medley Relay team, comprised of Ben Bocox, Manny Morales, Beckett Schuckman, and Cooper Bohme, kicked things off swimming a new personal record of 1:52.85, however they finished 0.3 seconds from advancing to the “B” final. The 400 Freestyle Relay team of Bocox, Schuckman, Kurt Mendez, and Bohme suffered a similar fate, placing 17th in the preliminaries with a season-best 3:45.43.
Bohme swam in the preliminaries for his individual swims on Friday as well. He began with the 200 Freestyle, placing 11th in the preliminary to go to the “B” final. He placed 11th as well in the 500 Freestyle, heading to the same race the following day. Bohme ended up placing 2nd in the “B” final of the 200 Free the following day, placing him 10th overall with a PR of 1:54.42. He eventually went on to win the “B” finals of the 500 Free to place 9th overall in the state, also swimming a personal best of 5:17.34.
The two placings by Bohme gave McPherson their lone points of the State Championships, finishing them 28th overall out of 43 schools. Andover won the State Title in 5-1A for the second straight year.
“This was a tough one of the guys who worked so hard to reach this point, only to fall just shy of our goals to swim in finals and swim for podium,” Head Coach Matt Cotton said. “On the whole we swam well, with everyone posting personal bests throughout the weekend, but the luck just didn’t fall for us this year. The clock is unforgiving at this stage and the margins of error are extremely slim, and our being just outside the cut means probably means a great swim for someone else. I’m still very proud of what all the guys were able to accomplish and the work they put in just to get the chance to compete at this meet. It is a tough and relentless sport to get to the top of, but this group of guys never stopped pushing.”
