Free State High swimmer Ashley Robinson made some memories the day of her senior prom even before hitting the dance floor.

Robinson earned two individual first-place finishes and made another visit to the top of the medal stand in the 400-yard freestyle relay Saturday at the Sunflower League swimming and diving championships in Knox Natatorium.

“I have to make it to my friend’s house by 4, and four of my friends are going to do my hair so I can make it to a dinner reservation at 8, but we leave at 6,” Robinson said. “It’s really complicated. And I was worried that we weren’t going to make it.”

Of course, she had to wait for the final event, the 400 free relay – and her teammates and spectators were glad she did.

Swimming the anchor leg for the relay team – also consisting of Sarah Clark, Becca Glass and Kelsi Mishler – Robinson found herself in third place and at least 10 yards behind the leader.

“I knew that we would probably pass Olathe East, and I was hoping for second,” FSHS coach Jama Crady said. “In fact, to the people that were standing next to me, I said, ‘Too much of a lead. Shawnee Mission East has too much of a lead for her to catch up.'”

But Robinson proved her coach wrong, coming in three-tenths of a second ahead of SM East.

“I don’t know how that happened,” Robinson said. “I wasn’t even really looking at her. I was just trying to get at least second. Then on the last turn, I looked over and saw how close I was and I was like, ‘Hey, maybe I can catch her.’ I just kind of came out of nowhere.”

Her decision to stick around for the final event instead of skipping out to prepare for the prom didn’t come out of nowhere and definitely didn’t surprise Crady.

“I let her decide, and she wanted to stay today,” Crady said. “I don’t know if that was always the case, but this is important to her, and she’s always put the team ahead of herself, and I don’t think that was going to change just because of prom.”

“I thought I was going to be in a bad mood and swim slow,” said a gassed and jittery Robinson. “But everything is just turning out really well. So, it’s really exciting.”

Lawrence High’s Kristi Rudman placed fourth in the 100 breaststroke, the highest finish for the Lions.

Rudman also was on the 10th-place 400 free relay team with Kate Rowden, Emma Mercer and Erin Eifler.

“Kristi said that she thought she could go 1:12, but you can’t get much closer with a 1:13.05,” LHS coach Ryan Adams said of her performance in the breaststroke. “With the 400 free relay, she swam her heart out, but it’s hard to do that in back-to-back events like that – swim your heart out and turn around and swim it again.”

The 200 medley relay team of Mercer, Rowden, Paula Kyriakos and Erina Houk finished eighth – just behind Free State’s team of Whitley Jackson, Madeline Glass, Amanda Bari and Bailey Carlson. The eighth-place finish was the best by an LHS relay team.