FAYETTEVILLE — Bentonville raced past most of competition Wednesday at the Fayetteville Holiday Invitational Swim Meet.
But more than a pair of team wins, which the Tigers and Lady Tigers easily secured, coach Steve Duwel wanted to see steady improvement from his swimmers. For the most part, Bentonville’s effort left Duwel pleased with the performance.
“Our goal today (for the boys) was to come out with four new bodies qualified for state, and I think we got three,” Duwel said. “Most of our swimmers were already qualified, and they qualified again in different events. But they swam well and competed.
“(The girls) were the same boat. We’re getting the kids to swim as many different events as we can right now. We’re not worried about scores right now as much as getting them qualified in as many events as we can.”
Whether the Tigers and Lady Tigers were concerned with scores or not, they took care of business on the leaderboard. Led by sophomore Jared Crosby’s win in the 200-yard freestyle and his effort in the 200 and 400 freestyle relays, Bentonville nearly lapped the rest of the fi eld in the boys team competiton, scoring 516 with runnerup Fayetteville totaling just 303.
Freshman Hayden Harlow also had a strong day for the Tigers, fi nishing second in the 200 free and second in the 500 freestyle while also contributing in the 400 relay.
The Lady Tigers finished with 498 points and won the 200 medley relay in a time of 2 minutes, 0.51 seconds, getting individual wins from Taylor Pike in the 200 freestyle and 100 butterfly, Jessica Kjellberg in the 200 yard IM and Lauren Hacala in the 50 freestyle.
Other local winners included Bentonville’s Brandon Haefner in the 200 IM and 500 freestyle, Rogers sophomore Lisa Lauschke in the girls 500 freestyle, Rogers Heritage’s Carly Holland in the girls 100 backstroke and Heritage’s Ian Posey in the boys 100 breaststroke.
“We we very glad to have the competition from down south come up for the meet,” Fayetteville coach Mike Kaminski said. “It’s good to have close races like this early in the year and face the good competition so we can work to improve.”