TIGER SWIMMERS PLACE EIGHTH AT STATE MEET

ST. PETERS -- Cape Central's swimming team ended up taking eighth place with 109 points in the state swimming competition on Saturday.

Jason Owen, Central's standout swimmer who had not been beaten during the regular season, came up just short of taking the state title in two events.

He finished second in the 200-yard freestyle, only seven-hundredths of a second behind Adam Apprill of Raytown. Owen swam the event in 1:43.26.

In the 100 backstroke, Owen took third place behind Seth Aldrich of Marquette (:52.53) and Eric Falk of Lee Summit North (:54.08).

Central's Eric Yount, who went undefeated in the 50 and 100 freestyle events during the regular season took fourth in the 50 and sixth in the 100.

Yount posted a time of :22.08 in the 50 and :49.33 in the 100.

Central's medley-relay team of Ben Roeger, Jon Lowrance, Yount and Zach Roberts took sixth, recording a time of 1:44.18, while the Tigers' 400-relay team of Yount, Roeger, Owen and Andrew Skinner took eighth with a time of 3:25.46

Parkway South won the state championship with a score of 207.

Although he set two school records, Owen didn't meet his goal of taking first place in the 200. He took second in the event last year and had the fastest qualifying time in Friday's race.

"We really wanted him to get that after taking second last year," Central coach Dayna Powell said. "Both of us are disappointed that he didn't get it."

Powell said that she thought Owen touched his hand first.

"I'm still not sure about it," Powell said.

All in all, though Powell was proud of her team for exceeding her goal of reaching the top 10, although the team was in sixth place entering Saturday's finals.

Only three points separated sixth through eighth place.

During the two-day state meet, two Cape Central records were broken. Owen broke records in his two events on Saturday and Yount broke a school mark in the 50 on Friday.