Wilkes Looks Ahead To State

Lake Placid's Michael Wilkes picked the right day to swim the races of his life: The senior broke two school records during Saturday's Class 1A-Region 2 meet at Lake Highland Prep and qualifed for state in two events as the lone member Dragon swim squad.

Wilkes, who'd never ventured below the 22 seconds in the 50-yard freestyle, used an optimal jump off the blocks and streaked through the water to finish with a time of 21.74 in the finals, good enough to secure the sixth seed in the upcoming state meet.

The time broke the former school record of 22.10.

Wilkes was elated after hearing he now owned the school record, though he was more interested in his placement in the field, where his time was good enough for third place behind Trinity Prep's Steven Wright, who automatically qualified for state with a 21.45.

"I feel good about breaking the school records," Wilkes said. "I knew I had to if I was going to have a chance of moving on to state. I knew [Wright] was the man to beat, so I tried to keep pace with him.
"I really just had to get a good push on the start, and I swam my best race ever."

The Green Dragon senior had already taken possession of the school record in the 100-yard freestyle during the preliminary heat, finishing in sixth with a time of 49.27 and besting the old LP record (49.70) by .43 seconds.

Wilkes' 100-free time was also good enough to qualify him for state in that event: He'll swim as the 19th seed.

Earlier in the day, Avon Park's Miguel Ortiz put himself into position to move on to the state finals after a strong performance in the regional diving competition.

Ortiz placed third with 335.80 and qualified 17th in the boys diving competition, while fellow senior Megan Barnes missed making the state field by finishing seventh with a total score of 289.

Lake Placid's 200-freestyle relay team of Chelsea McGuire, Tammi Beach, Marbelly Creel and Danielle Rivers took sixth in the finals with a 1:50.73, while the boys 200-free team of Robert Greene, Andrew Morrison, Zach Lavoy and Michael Wilkes took eighth in the finals with a 1:37.51. Rivers also made the consolation final in the 50-free with a 26.73.

Overall, Lake Placid swimmers watched times drop even if it didn't mean moving on to the state meet, something Green Dragon head coach Cindy Rivers was extremely pleased with.

"These kids did very well today," coach Rivers said. "I had so many of my kids disappointed that they didn't reach the finals. I asked them if their times dropped, because that's more important to me right now.

"I want to see them improving, because we have such a young team, and this is a great experience for them."