The Raiders swim and dive team sent two to state, Tristan Herbst for the 500 freestyle and Charlie Jensen for diving.
Jensen performed on Thursday in the preliminary diving rounds where he finished with a score of 166.90 which put him in 14th place. The top 16 move on to the finals round where he scored 251.15 in the semi-final round. Jensen finished with a score of 338.40 for 16th place. The first-place diver was Lucas Gerten who finished with a Class AA state record of 539.60.
For swimming, Tristan Herbst swam in the 500 freestyle on Friday night in the prelims finishing 23rd with a time of 4:55.72. Only the top 16 continue to the finals.
Before the race, Herbst gave a peek into his strategy for the 500. “I want to make sure that I pace up and go out strong and find my rhythm right away. The biggest thing is to keep my technique up and make sure that does not fall.”
He knew he would need to swim a perfect race to win his heat and make it to Saturday, but he also knew it would be an uphill battle to do so.
With Hastings only qualifying one diver and one swimmer, both nights felt a little lonely for both boys with no teammates directly there with them.
“It's good to have one guy here to help support and I wish there were some of my other teammates here that were really close, but I'm looking forward to next year because I know we'll send a bunch more,” added Herbst.
The down year for Hastings was a bit to be expected with the team being young, but the good news is, the young kids saw a sophomore swimmer and junior diver make the state tournament and that will provide excitement to send more next year.
