Morgan Flannigan cuts through the water during the 1,500-meter freestyle at the Wave the Wheat Meet on Thursday at Lawrence Indoor Aquatic Center.

Molly Albrecht and Morgan Flannigan have become used to the prune fingers and goggle marks around their eyes.

The two Lawrence Aquahawks and Free State High swimmers have logged countless hours in the pool over the years.

Albrecht has been swimming competitively since she was 7 years old – swimming with the Aquahawks for 10 years now – and Flannigan has been at it for nearly nine years.

“It’s been a great time over the years,” Albrecht said. “You get to meet a lot of new people. We’ve gotten closer because we’ve all known each other for so long. It kind of becomes like a second family.”

Aquahawks coach Mike Soderling has been with Albrecht for eight of those years and a few with Flannigan.

“They’ve come a long way. They’re both Junior National-level swimmers, which means they are in the top high school, 18-and-under kids, in the country,” Soderling said. “They’re really good for each other because they push each other back and forth in practice. They’ve really started to come on well.”

At the Wave the Wheat Meet on Thursday at Lawrence Indoor Aquatic Center, both swimmers were pushing each other during the 1,500-meter freestyle.

While Flannigan came in with a seed time nine seconds better than Albrecht, she was right on the heels of her teammate the entire time. Albrecht finished with a time of 18:08, with Flannigan just two seconds off at 18:10.

“We were just about at what we wanted,” said Albrecht, who was three seconds off her seed time. “We’re going to our big meet next weekend, so we didn’t really want to go out there and put up our best time because we’re saving that for next week.”

Alyssa Potter, who just finished her freshman year swimming at Kansas University with twin sister Brittany, had the top time in the heat with Flannigan and Albrecht. The native of Bentonville, Ark., had a seed time of 18:18.18 and clocked in at 17:53.

Flannigan and Albrecht’s pool success has carried over to the school year.

Flannigan swam anchor for Free State’s 200 medley relay and 400 freestyle relay teams – which took first at state and set state records in the process. Albrecht swam the first leg of the 200 medley and the third leg in the 400 free.

Free State’s Reilly Moore and Chloe Portela were the two other swimmers on the record-setting state championship relay teams.

“We didn’t really know going into it what the records would be. I don’t think any of us were really thinking about it,” Flannigan said. “We were just thinking about winning and hoping to go out there and put up the best time. We weren’t really looking at meet records, but maybe a little at our school records.”

Albrecht and Flannigan also had individual success at state.

Flannigan finished third in the 200 freestyle – a race Albrecht won – and place second in the 500 freestyle.

After winning the 200 free, Albrecht came within 0.01 seconds of winning the 100 backstroke as well, settling instead for second place.

“Club and high school swimming is very different,” Albrecht said. “In high school it’s more about representing your team, which is fun. It’s kind of fun to bring that team aspect back with you to club swimming and try to really make it more about the team and not so much about the individual – which is nice.”