Contor swims to ninth-place finish at state meet

BOISE — Sophomore Madison Contor set a personal best 57.31 to finish ninth in the 100 free, leading the Bulldogs at the state swimming championships last weekend in Boise.

“She won the consolation final by half a body length, she was pulling away from them,” said Bulldogs head coach Mike Brosnahan. “She’s so versatile that at state I didn’t put her in her usual events.”

Contor also teamed with Shanna Crayne, Alex Krames and Kaitlin Wallis to finish 12th among 31 teams in the 200 medley relay, and 11th among 28 teams in the 400 free relay.

Both relays dropped time from the prelims, when the Bulldogs struggled overall as a team, posting higher times than they had leading up to the meet.

“Saturday they turned it on, they were on their A game,” said Brosnahan. “There were big time drops from the prelims to the finals. We were much better Saturday than Friday.”

Contor finished 18th in the 100 breast, missing the finals by just .36 seconds, while Crayne finished 18th in the 100 back, missing the finals by just under one second. With many events featuring more than 30 swimmers, nabbing one of the 16 final spots proved no easy task at a meet where state records were falling like crazy.

Wallis was 29th in the 200 free and 30th in the 500 free, Krames was 30th in the 200 free and 34th in the 100 fly, Crayne was 28th in the 50 free and Jacob Sweezy 34th in the 100 breast to round out the Bulldog finishes.

Former Sandpoint and current University of Wisconsin swimmer Paulina Gralow’s state record in the 100 breast was never challenged, as no competitor came within 1.5 seconds of eclipsing the mark, which Brosnahan believes could stand for a while.