The Topper 2023 Swim Team at the State Championship. Courtesy Photo
By SANDY HURLOCKER & COACH CHRIS WETTELAND
LAHS SPORTS
Los Alamos High School (LAHS) Boys and girls swim teams take 3rd and fourth place at NMAA State Championships, and bring home a treasure chest full of medals in the process
Twenty-eight high school teams from all corners of New Mexico brought nearly 400 competitors to vie for top honors at the State Swimming and Diving Championships, Feb. 17 and 18 at Albuquerque Academy, with champions declared in 18 individual events, and six relays.
At the end of the weekend, the Los Alamos Toppers came home with champions in six individual events and two relays. The boys team placed third overall, with the girls team taking fourth.
Anna Wetteland (50 Free, 100 Fly) and Duncan Henderson (200 IM, 100 Back), swam to top honors in two events each. Sophia Pieck (100 Fly) and Ming Lo (100 Fly) also made championship efforts, as well as swimming to second place finishes: Pieck (50 Free) and Lo (100 breast).
In the relays, the boys claimed first place in the 200 Medley (Henderson, Lo, Nikolai Nelson, and Hayden Sutton), while the girls were champions in the 200 Freestyle (Pieck, Wetteland, Lena Ronning, and Emily McLaughlin). The girls also placed second in the 400 Freestyle (Pieck, Wetteland, Ronning, and Catherine Price).
The championship format at State means the top 16 finishers in each event the first day return on the second day to compete in the finals.
“Our state champions deserve all the praise I can think of because of their hard work and drive,” Wetteland said. “I couldn’t be prouder of their accomplishments on that state-wide stage.”
At the same time, from a team standpoint, while first place finishes are important for individuals to show their stuff and earn team points, hard swimming by the whole team during the prelims is also important to make the team scores competitive.
“All of our relay squads made it to the finals, and across the board our individual swimmers had great swims on the first day to set us up nicely for the finals,” the coach said. “We went into the season thinking we had a good team, and this meet proved us right.”
Additional Quotes & Information
I had a feeling we were going to have a good meet with the swims the 200 Medley relay teams threw down in the first two events of the meet. Our girls medley team was relatively inexperienced and consisted of an 8th grader, freshmen, sophomore, and junior (Alma Hurlocker, Catherine Price, Allie Holland., and Emily McLaughlin); their time was on par with the best swims our experienced swimmers put together all season. The boy’s team dropped a bomb in prelims and took it to the next level in finals with a dominant victory over Albuquerque Academy, it was what was meant to be one of the more contested relays of the meet (Duncan Henderson, Ming Lo, Nikolai Nelson, and Hayden Sutton). The fast swims in the first relays foreshadowed tremendous time drops for the team across the board.
Our number one seeds coming out of preliminaries were untouchable in finals. Duncan Henderson won the 200 IM and 100 back by almost 3 seconds and 4.2 seconds, Ming Lo won the 100 fly by 1.75 seconds, and Anna Wetteland won the 50 free and 100 fly by 1.3 seconds and almost 2 full seconds. Sophia Pieck was seated third in preliminaries but had a gritty swim to outlast Eldorado’s Makaela Perea to win the 100 free by 0.07; she was the only LAHS swimmer to move up into a first place finish from prelims to finals.
One of the most exciting races for me was the girls 200 free relay. We swam this event off most of the year but had a feeling it was a relay where we could be very competitive at state. We came out of preliminaries seated first, which put a target on our backs. The team of Sophia Pieck, Emily McLaughlin and Lena Ronning held off the entire field for the first 150 yards before Anna Wetteland (fresh off being crowned the fastest 50 freestyler in the state) put the race out of contest and dropping her first ever sub 23 relay split. It was a gritty swim by the team and I feel like the girls were really swimming for each other which resulted in a school record.
We had some tough swimming by multiple members of our boy’s team. Nikolai Nelson and Daniel Borovina swam back to back in the 500 and 200 free relay. We needed to spread out our swimmers over multiple relays to maximize our points for a top three finish, and William and Nikolai swam courageously with the help of Daniel Borovina and Duncan Henderson to move up a place between prelims and finals.
A relay disqualification in the final event on the night (400 Freestyle relay) kept the boys team from a second place finish, but the team made a run at another title by closing a significant point deficit to Eldorado from the pre-meet scores.
This team had a tremendous work ethic and it showed in how we swam the last meet of the year.
Two team members achieved All-American consideration times at the state meet. All-American times identify the top 100 high school swimmers in that event. Duncan Henderson achieved this in the 100 back and likely the 200IM with altitude adjustment and Anna Wetteland achieved these times in the 50 free, 100 free and 100 fly.
Multiple team records were broken this weekend as well. Anna Wetteland took down 2 of her own records, her 50 free 23.74 to 23.23 and 100 fly 57.62 record to 55.46. The girls 200 free relay record set just last year, 1:40.00, dropped to 1:39.98 with the team of Sofia Pieck, Emily McLaughlin, Lena Ronning and Anna Wetteland. Duncan Henderson broke his own 100 backstroke record of 51.60 by swimming a 49.23. Ming Yuan-Lo was within 0.02 of the oldest record on the board, a 1987 100 fly record held by Eric Boland.
The start of the 200 Yard Medley Relay in the State 2023 NMAA Swim and Dive competition held in the Natatorium located on the campus of the Albuquerque Academy this past weekend. The Toppers boys finished in 3rd and the girls finished in 4th. Photo by John McHale/ladaitypost.com
Duncan Henderson swimming the 100 Yard Backstroke which he won in near record time. Duncan won 3 gold metals each in near record time, the 200 Yard Medley Relay, the 200 Yard IM, and the 100 Yard Backstroke. Photo by JohnMcHale/ladailypost.com
Anna Wetteland swimming the 100 Yard Butterfly which she won. She also won the 50 Yard Freestyle. Photo by JohnMcHale/ladailypost.com
Ming-Lang Lo swimming their 100m Yard Butterfly which he won. Photo by JohnMcHale/ladailypost.com
Nikolai Nelson, near and Willian Borovina swim in unison in the 500 Yard Freestyle. Photo by JohnMcHale/ladailypost.com
Sophia Pieck swimming the 100 Yard Freestyle in winning time. Photo by JohnMcHale/ladailypost.com
Aiden Manzanares competing in the diving. Photo by JohnMcHale/ladailypost.com
Anna Wetteland on the podium to receive her gold medal for the 100 Yard Butterfly with her coach Chris Wetteland, also her father. Photo by JohnMcHale/ladailypost.com
On the podium are the boys 200-yard Medley Relay team and the Coach Chris Wetteland. Courtesy Photo
The girls state champs in the 200-yard relay. Courtesy Photo