Laker Swim and Dive Gears Up For Sections This Weekend

Detroit Lakes, MN (KDLM) – One week after taking second place in the MidState Conference Swim and Dive Meet, the Laker Swim and Dive team have their sights set on the Section 5A meet this weekend.

“(Conference champion) Park Rapids has a pretty solid team,” said Swim and Dive coach Will Blasczyk. “We came in second, and we had a bunch of guys who finished first in the conference in their event. Senior John Gulon came out and won a couple of individual races…the 50 free and the 100 back. He’s a very strong swimmer. We had a couple of surprises, too. Ryan Erickson went out and dropped some time on his 100 free and took first in the MidState. It was a fun home meet, and now we’re looking forward to Sections this Friday and Saturday.”

The Section 5A meet will be held at Discovery Middle School in Alexandria. Section 5A consists of MidState rivals Park Rapids and Perham, Alexandria, Thief River Falls, Morris, Melrose/Sauk Center, and Fergus Falls.

“Our section is pretty tough,” says Blasczyk. “A lot of good teams…Alexandria and Melrose/Sauk Center are pretty solid.  But again, our guys have been working hard. There are teams in our section that we’ve beaten this season in duals and triangulars already. So there are teams that we know we can beat, but at the same time we know we’ve got some still competition coming out of those bigger schools for the Section title.”

“The State cut times just came out,” said Blasczyk. “You need to be able to swim the 100 back in 56.62 to make it to state. Last weekend, Gulon did it in 56.70, so he was a couple of hundredths of a second off from that state cut time. So if he can go out and do it again, he could make it to State. The top two swimmers in any individual meet get an automatic bid to state, but if you swim faster than that cut time, you also go compete at State. The 100 back is his bread and butter. This is his time.”

The Swin Meet prelims begin at 5:30 in Alexandria on Friday.