Moses Lake gears up for districts

MOSES LAKE — Heading into Friday's Big Nine district meet, head coach Tony St. Onge is preparing for a first-place finish, but realistically, he is hoping for third.

Mainly because Wenatchee and Eastmont, both of which finished in front of the Chiefs in the Big Nine standings, are in a league of their own.

"The two teams that are out there right now are Eastmont and Wenatchee," St. Onge said. "They are ahead of the rest of the league."

Moses Lake finished the regular season in third place with only two losses and qualified sixteen swimmers and four divers for the postseason. Only Mario Polito qualified for the state tournament.

At districts, the Chiefs have a chance to qualify more events for the state tournament, but would need to set state qualifying times or win events to do that. Right now, Polito is the lone swimmer could score a top-place finish for Moses Lake being the favorite to win the 50-free and potentially the 100-free. Polito has already qualified for state in both events.

In the relays, the Chiefs are five seconds off a state qualifying time in the 200-medley relay, four seconds off the 200-free relay and nine seconds off a state qualifying time in the 400-free relay.

Fighting for third place at the district tournament won't be as easy as St. Onge had hoped. The Chiefs pulled off wins over Eisenhower, Richland and Walla Walla, but St. Onge said they are the expected competition battling for that third-place finish.

While Moses Lake pulled off wins over all three teams during the regular season, it was depth, not dominance that put the Chiefs over the top. Eisenhower won seven of the 12 events in their meet against Moses Lake, Richland and Walla Walla each won six. The Chiefs managed to win the second, third and fourth-place battles in each of those meets to pull off wins.

At the district tournament, those battles for first will determine who swims in the finals and scores points for the team.

"The teams that we have beat have the advantage now," St. Onge said, adding, "the playing field has been leveled for everyone else."

But, St. Onge said he has one advantage and that is the relatively unknown group of swimmers he is taking to the meet.

Except for Polito, most of the swimmers on the team get in the pool during the season only, St. Onge said. Because of that, the rest of the Big Nine doesn't know how to match up against his squad, he added.

"That is why we surprised these (teams) because the majority of our swimmers are unknown," St. Onge said.

The district meet starts on Friday at Central Washington University. St. Onge has pushed his swimmers toward exhaustion, but keeping them short of that line to keep them in shape without wearing them down.

After Monday's time trials, he feels ready to attempt his biggest challenge of the season.

"We have had a good season and surprised a lot of people," St. Onge said. "All the time trials we had at the start of practice gave me the indication that we are ready to go."

The Chiefs have qualified 16 swimmers:

Eric Butterfield - 200-free, 500-free

Craig Stout - 200-free, 500-free

Robert Kubosumi - 200-free, 100-free

Jeremy Grant - 200-I.M., 100-back

Brad Reeder - 200-I.M., 100-breast

Chris Forrest - 200-I.M., 100-back

Mario Polito - 50-free, 100-free

Kraig Grant - 50-free, 100-breast

Rhoan Ashby - 50-free

Jeff Warner - 100-fly, 100-back

Alexey Semenko - 100-fly, 100-back

Dylan Grigg - 100-fly

Brian Butterfield - 100-free

Ceasar Seanez - 500-free

Kyle Kittrell - 500-free

Andrew Giefle - 100-breast

Four divers:

Jacob Smedley

Tim Molitor

Carl Borg

Chad Borg