Aledo qualifies five for state

If it's late February, it must mean that Haley Roberson and Victoria Crews are on their way to Austin.

For a third consecutive season , the juniors will be competing for Aledo at the University Interscholastic League Class 5A Swimming and Diving Meet at the University of Texas Feb. 23-24. They will be joined by senior Porter Lane, who is making his second straight appearance, and state newcomers junior Avery Faulkner and sophomore Julia Gordy.

The top two finishers in each event qualified for state.

Roberson qualified in three events, including two individually. She won the 200-yard individual medley with yet another school-record time of 2 minutes, 5.57 seconds, besting her own previous mark. She also took first in the 500 freestyle, clocking a finals time of 5:07.38.

In addition, Roberson joined Crews, Faulkner and Gordy as she swam the anchor leg of the girls 400 freestyle relay. The quartet won the event in another record time of 3:50.90.

Roberson improved her time in the 200 IM finals by more than five seconds over her preliminaries race and by more than 10 seconds in the 500 free finals. The relay had an improvement of almost 11 seconds from preliminaries to finals, vaulting from fourth place to first.

Lane won two individual events, posting a time of 50.14 in the 100 butterfly and a 59.32 in the 100 breaststroke. His time of 59.11 seconds in the 100 breaststroke prelims set a school record.

Though they did not qualify for state, the boys 200 freestyle relay set a school record of 1:33.64 to finish third. The foursome consisted of Lane, freshmen Jaxon Robinson and Kale Roberson and junior Tyler Jackson.

Crews also narrowly missed qualifying in a third event, taking third in the 100 butterfly.

Also, the boys 400 freestyle relay of Lane, Roberson, Brayden Deboer and Jackson advanced to the finals, but was disqualified on a technicality after finishing third in the preliminaries.

"I’m incredibly proud of our entire team and their swims this weekend. One hundred percent of our races came back for finals, I don’t know that we’ve ever accomplished that before," coach Meghan Roberson said. "Nearly all of them dropped time between prelims and finals, which shows a fight and want to compete and improve. I couldn’t have asked for better races from any of them. 

"This sport takes an incredible amount of dedication and sacrifice from the student athletes and their families, 6 a.m. practices in Fort Worth four-plus days a week, working outside of high school swimming with their clubs, these athletes are something special."

This is Aledo's ninth consecutive season to have swimmers competing at state.

"I’m excited to see how we’ll stack up at state. We have a short two weeks to continue to prepare, this season is long (September to February) and these kids are getting tired, but we’re in the final stretch," coach Roberson continued. "If we execute on the details we have a chance at making a strong finals appearance."

As a team, the Bearcats and Ladycats each finished fifth at regionals.

UIL Class 5A Region II Swimming and Diving Meet

at Mansfield Natatorium

Feb. 9-10

Aledo results

Team finishes

Boys 5th, girls 5th

Top individual results

(Distances in yards, top two in each event qualified for state)

Girls

200 Medley Relay: 5. Avery Faulkner, Addie Speed, Corah Satterfield, Victoria Crews, 2:04.43 28.

200 Freestyle: 9. Julia Gordy, 2:10.43.

200 IM: 1. Haley Roberson, 2:05.57.

100 Butterfly: 3. Crews, 1:01.93; 13. Satterfield, 1:11.10.

500 Freestyle: 1. Roberson, 5:07.38.

200 Freestyle Relay: 7. Faulkner, Satterfield, Speed, Gordy, 1:54.53.

100 Backstroke: 5. Crews, 1:05.19; 10. Satterfield, 1:08.63.

100 Breaststroke: 14. Speed, 1:24.30.

400 Freestyle Relay: 1. Crews, Faulkner, Gordy, Roberson, 3:50.90.

Boys

200 Medley Relay: 8. Cade Catlin, Tyler Jackson, Evan Bradley, Kale Roberson, 1:52.26 22.

200 Freestyle: 14. Bradley, 2:09.28.

200 IM: 14. Brayden DeBoer, 2:16.89.

50 Freestyle: 14. Roberson, 24.71.

100 Butterfly: 1. Porter Lane, 50.14.

100 Freestyle: 11. Jackson, 53.52.

500 Freestyle: 6 DeBoer, 5:32.86.

200 Freestyle Relay: 3. Jackson, Jaxon Robinson, Roberson, Lane, 1:33.64.

100 Backstroke: 4. Catlin, 58.72.

100 Breaststroke: 1. Lane, 59.32; 12. Ian Perez, 1:12.24.