Led by Allyssa Phelps, Breck swimmers look strong in Class 1A

The preliminaries of the girls' swimming and diving state meet Thursday didn't go quite as planned for Breck senior Allyssa Phelps.

As the only individual defending champion in Class 1A, Phelps qualified for the championship finals in the 200 IM and swam legs on two relay teams that also qualified for the championship finals at the Jean K. Freeman Aquatic Center. But Phelps missed advancing to the championship finals in the 500 freestyle by one spot.

Phelps, who finished fourth in the 500 at last year's state meet, finished ninth in the 500 prelims with a time of 5 minutes, 13.96 seconds, just one-tenth of a second out of eighth.

"Each year is different," said Phelps. "I am definitely excited about tomorrow for our team."

Phelps, who won the 200 IM last year, had the third-best time (2:08.01) in the preliminaries behind Hill-Murray freshman Gabi Baldwin (2:07.14) and Blake sophomore Madison Potter (2:07.58).

"Allyssa had a little hiccup today," Breck coach Michelle Carlson said. "But she will bring it for sure tomorrow. She swam well on the relays and as a team we did very well today."

Breck, the state runner-up last year, advanced all three of its relays, four swimmers and one diver to the championship finals. Breck sophomore Saylor Hawkins had the top score (298.40) in Wednesday's diving preliminaries. She finished fourth last year.

Visitation sophomore Maria Mattaini had the top time in the 500 freestyle preliminaries (5:01.38). Blazers senior Lorelei Gaertner had the second-best time in 50 freestyle and the third-best time in the 100 butterfly.

The Blazers had a glitch as well. The Blazers' 200 medley relay team did not advance after being disqualified because of an early exchange.

Edina and Wayzata, which have combined to win the past six Class 2A state titles, dominated the preliminaries.

Edina, which won three consecutive titles from 2010-12 and hasn't finished lower than third at the state meet since 2008, advanced three relays, 12 swimmers and two divers to the championship finals.

Wayzata, which is going for its fourth consecutive state title, advanced three relays, nine swimmers and three divers.

Edina junior Raime Jones had the top times in the 200 IM (2:03.10) and the 100 freestyle (50.59).

Wayzata senior Carly Quast, the defending champion in the 200 freestyle and 100 backstroke, had the top prelims time in those two events. Edina junior Kelly McCarthy, the defending champion in the 500 freestyle, had the top time (4:56.14) in that event and the second-best time in the 200 (1:50:07).

Andover senior Bella Smits, the only defending individual champion not from Edina or Wayzata, had the second-best time in 100 freestyle (51.37) and the fourth-best time (23.56) in the 50 freestyle. Smits won the 100 freestyle last year in 50.40.