The Raiders sent seven individuals to the State Swim and Dive meet for Class AA over the past weekend. The diving preliminaries were held on Thu. Nov. 16, swimming preliminaries on Nov. 17, and finals on Nov. 18. Of the seven Raiders that saw state action, only one moved on to the final day of competition, freshman Chloe Aarness in diving. All three Hastings relays placed 17th, missing the final day by a total of 1.87 seconds.

The first event of the day was the 200 Medley Relay. Lauren Jenkins – backstroke, Kira Aarness – breaststroke, Josey Larson – butterfly, and Ashtyn Stewart - freestyle placed 17th with a time of 1:53.64 missing the top 16 by 1.01 seconds.

Kira Aarness swam the 200 individual medley placing 19th with a time of 2:11.78. The individual medley is a different order starting with the butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke, and freestyle.

Sofia Kovalenko represented Hastings in the 100-butterfly finishing 24th with a time of 2:11.78.

Chloe Aarness, who made it to the final day, placed 13th in diving with a score of 374.90. The first-place score of 529.20 went to Madeline Kohel at Minneapolis Washburn.

Stewart, Kovalenko, Kira Aarness, and Lila Salzman teamed up for the final two relays. First, placing 17th in the 200-freestyle with a time of 1:40.59, missing the final day by .82 of a second. Second, they placed 17th again with a time of 3:40.52, this time missing the final day with a heartbreaking .04 of a second.

Best of luck to the three seniors from the team, Lauren Jenkins, Clara Birken and Ashtyn Stewart. Go out and do great things ladies and thank you for your years with Raiders Swim and Dive.