Free State and Lawrence High boys swimming and diving teams have plenty to celebrate after competing at the Sunflower League meet on Friday and Saturday.


The Firebirds won six league titles, with two relays, and two victories each by senior Jack Ziegler and sophomore Jordan Portela. The two relays broke meet records, Ziegler broke a meet and school record in the 50-yard freestyle, and Portela broke a meet and FSHS record in the 100 butterfly.


Add all of that up, and the Firebirds took second place in the league, their best finish since tying for second place in 2004. That was the same year Portela’s older brother Anthony won a league title in the butterfly and also helped set a then-meet record in the 400 freestyle relay.


“It was great,” Jordan Portela said. “We had a lot of competition, even between swimmers on our own team, so that was fun and pushed us pretty hard. Second, I mean we were going in and looking at that place. Shawnee Mission East has a lot of depth on their team. … We’re all really happy. We broke a couple of records and we all got of bunch of best times so we’re pretty happy and ready for state.”


The Firebirds also see plenty of room to improve before state, which could be a scary thing for opposing squads. Senior Nolan Stoppel slipped on a block in prelims, and fell into the consolation finals in the 50 freestyle. He took first place in the consolation finals, but his time, 22.25, was good enough for third if he was in the finals.


Senior Josh Terrell (200 IM, 100 breast), Evan Eskilson (100 fly) and Evan Yoder (100 breast) added top-three finishes.


“We have potential and we’re working on that,” Annette McDonald said. “It was really fun to see our times drop but I think we’re going to see those times drop again.”


Lawrence’s team jumped from eighth place in the standings last year to fifth this season. Though the Lions’ swimmers didn’t drop as much time as they probably would have liked to, they still held off a few close challengers to keep a nice spot in the standings.


“Before the meet, I was hoping for fourth,” LHS coach Kent McDonald said. “But after we saw the entries, I was pretty sure fifth would be about the highest we could get by the entry times. … So I thought we had a good shot at holding onto fifth. But today, it wasn’t quite as good as yesterday.”
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I shot video of a couple of the new league meet records. The first is Ziegler’s new league meet and school record in the 50 freestyle (21.08). Next is Portela’s school and league meet record in the 100 fly (50.72), followed by the last two legs of the 400 freestyle relay, swam by Nolan Stoppel and Portela (3:14.12), which broke a league record. They are all in the third lane from the left, and the voices you hear are the SM East fans I was surrounded by.









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