Olathe ? After swimming 20 laps of the 500 freestyle, Morgan Flannigan needed a breather.

“It’s tiring,” the freshman Free State swimmer said. “I was pretty darn tired. It’s hard to explain.”

The difficulty of her explanation was probably because Flannigan dominated the competition so much that no one had time to take notice of her tiredness. She won the the event by nine seconds (5 minutes, 14.81 seconds) at Saturday’s Sunflower League Championships at Chisholm Trail Junior High.

Flannigan earned 16 points from her performance in the 500 and contributed to the Firebirds’ second-place overall finish (210 total points). Lawrence High finished sixth with 125 points. Shawnee Mission East won the meet with 263 points.

To further illustrate Flannigan’s importance, the freshman was a part of 88 of her team’s 210 points (41.9 percent). She won the 200 freestyle (1:57.00) and swam a leg in the 200 medley relay (1:52.30; first place) and the 200 freestyle relay (1:42.79; third place).

The 200 medley relay, which consisted of Flannigan, senior Katie Swank, junior Katie Sloan and freshman Heather Clark, set a Free State school record with a time of 1:52.30.

Flannigan’s mental preparation was different for her individual 200 and 500 freestyle swims. She said in the 200, she sprinted just about the entire race. Since the 500 took more than five minutes to complete, Flannigan sprinted the first 100 yards and the last 100 yards. In between, she paced herself.

“Since it’s so long, I really focused on my turns, keeping my stroke long and having a good start,” Flannigan said.

Flannigan’s pacing during the 500 might have been identical to the competition sprinting the event. The qualifying time for the Kansas Class 6A state meet in the 500 is 5:44.20. Flannigan beat that time by about 30 seconds.

“What’s interesting is instead of slowing down, she’s picking it up,” Free State coach Annette McDonald said. “She gets off the walls quickly and just works the whole race.”

Free State’s other dual event winner was Clark, who won the 200 individual medley (2:13.71) and 100 backstroke (59.65). Clark’s preliminary time of 59.24 seconds in the backstroke set a Free State school record.

“Heather’s not vocal about her great ability, so to see her come back smiling and enjoying the win was very nice,” McDonald said. “Her underwater is so efficient that she pulls ahead every time.”

Clark barely edged Lawrence High senior Chelsea Dirks-Ham (1:00.01) in the backstroke.

No one challenged Dirks-Ham in the butterfly, which is her specialty event. The senior was the only competitor to finish the event in under a minute with her time of 58.80. Sloan finished second with a time of 1:00.05 for Free State.

“It pushed me harder and made me hold my walls longer and breathe less, which made me faster,” Dirks-Ham said of competing next to Sloan.

Dirks-Ham lowered her preliminary score from 1:00.37 to 58.80 in the finals. She missed the LHS school record by two tenths of a second.

“It was close until the end, where she pulled away and it was exciting to watch that,” Lawrence coach Kent McDonald said. “She’s really strong, confident and competitive. She wants to win. This was her race.”

In the one-meter diving event, LHS junior Mallory West placed third with 396.00 points. Free State senior Carol Fittell finished fourth with 392.85 points.