CENTRAL SWIMMERS, DIVER POOLING RESOURCES FOR STATE MEET

Today several Cape Girardeau Central High swimmers and divers will once again head north for the state meet.

Only this season the competition will be held away from Hickman High in Columbia for the first time in 22 years. The meet, which starts Friday, will be held at the Rec Plex in St. Charles, which Central coach Dayna Powell said is "the nicest pool in the state."

"They've brought in more bleachers," Powell said, "and they hope to have more spectators. We'll have more people from here going up to see them."

Central will take eight swimmers, one diver and an alternate to the meet.

"This is always a really exciting meet," Powell said. "All of our individual qualifiers were there last year, but two of them were sick. They're excited that they're feeling well this year."

The individual qualifiers are juniors Jason Owen, Ben Roeger and Eric Yount and senior Nick Sterrett. Sterrett is the only senior who qualified.

Owen, who will swim the 200- and 500-yard freestyle races, is undefeated in both events.

"State is just a whole different thing than a dual meet," Powell said. "But I think Jason is ready to swim fast and I think he's ready to have somebody beside him to push him a little bit. He should be going in some of the top seed positions."

Roeger will also compete in the 200- and 500-yard freestyle races. Yount will swim the 50- and 100-yard freestyle events and Sterrett will compete in 1-meter diving.

Owen, Roeger, Yount and sophomore Jaime Higgins will compete in the 200- and 400-yard freestyle relays.

"We believe our 400 free relay is our strongest relay," Powell said. "We've been beaten only once or twice in very close races. Our goal for that team would be a top six finish and be all-state."

A Central team also qualified for the 200-yard IM race. Stratton Tingle will swim the backstroke, Matt Hawkins the breaststroke, Zack Roberts the butterfly and Nathan Skinner the freestyle portion of the race.

Andrew Skinner is the team's alternate.

Last season Central finished 16th. It was the first time the Tigers placed worse than 10th.

"If we can get anywhere close to that top 10 ... I'd be real happy," Powell said. "This year it seems like there are a lot of teams in our position: We have a couple of real good swimmers, and our relay teams could be pretty competitive with some of the other schools. Whoever is the most prepared I think is going to come out on top.

"I think we'll maybe be lacking a little experience, but hopefully we can make up for that with some hard work."

Central's regular season finished with some disappointment. The Tigers' last five losses this season came by fewer than 10 points.

"We're hoping to go up and finish the season on a real positive note. It was tough to take those losses because we swam as fast as we could swim and we still didn't win."

Powell said Hickman, Springfield Glendale, Chaminade, Parkway North, Parkway South and Lee's Summit North should be among the strongest teams in the meet.