PB girls make waves despite loss

It may not have been the ideal team result, but make no mistake, a lot of good came from the Poplar Bluff Lady Mules swimming dual Tuesday at the Black River Coliseum swimming pool.

The Lady Mules fell 117-52 to an experienced West Plains squad, but when the event had ended all three relay teams made their mark on the scene for Poplar Bluff.

“West Plains has gotten a new group of fresh swimmers and they have really grown — they are young, but experienced — so I knew it would be a challenge for the girls,” Poplar Bluff head coach Beth Lewis said. “The challenge with the dual meet is the events are back-to-back-to-back with very little rest time in between. Looking over it, every girl performed pretty well.”

The 200-medley relay (Lily Gregory, Ava Richardson, Keira Willis, Kinsley Gibbs) was near the state cut and the mark Tuesday (2:19.58) behooved a likely progression to the times that group will need, while the 200 (Gregory, Willis, Gibbs, Katie Scott, 2:11.41) and 400-freestyle (Gregory, Willis, Scott, Gibbs, 4:40.50) relays both made their state cuts, according to Lewis.

“We went in with the mentality we needed to stack the relays so that prevented some girls to swim multiple individual events because they were maxed out with relays,” Lewis said.

The Lady Mules did not claim any wins against West Plains, but the three relay teams all finished second in their individual events while Savannah Hanner (100 breaststroke, 1:32.03) also took second in her own flight.

“Savannah is a new swimmer — she just started in November — and has dropped a lot of time,” Lewis said. “Kiera, Lily and Kinsley did well for us in all three relays. (The relays) are young and tough but still need a lot of improvement. They understand they aren’t just swimming for themselves, but for the other three and that is starting to click with them. They are handling the pressure well for being so young.

“If they stick around the next couple years, they are only going to get stronger.”

The Lady Mules do not have a senior in their lineup.

Third-place finishes were brought home by Scott (200 freestyle), Gabrielle Balz (200 IM), Gregory (50 freestyle), Willis (500 freestyle), Gracie Brown (100 backstroke) and Allie Deez (100 breaststroke).