EVANSTON — The preliminaries of the Class 4A Wyoming High School Boys’ Swimming State Championships are in the books, as they began yesterday on Valentine’s Day at 2 p.m. The finals will be underway at 10 a.m. today, Feb. 15, at the Campbell County Aquatics Center. The field of 12 teams in Class 4A includes: Thunder Basin, Campbell County, Laramie, Cheyenne East, Cheyenne Central, Cheyenne South, Kelly Walsh, Natrona County, Rock Springs, Green River and Evanston, with the Laramie Plainsmen as the odds-on favorite to repeat as champions. Laramie handily won the 4A West Conference regional meet in Evanston, scoring 373 team points to distance the Plainsmen from runner-up, Kelly Walsh, with 288 and Green River’s 277. Evanston placed fourth with 149 points. 

Anything can happen, in particular, at culminating events like the state meet, and Laramie could be challenged for the crown by Cheyenne Central and the 2017 state champion Campbell County Camels, but the Plainsmen appear to be the class of the 4A ranks, with a plethora of team depth.

Swimming is a numbers game, as are most high school sports in Wyoming, and that’s what makes it so tough on a squad like the Red Devils, small in sheer state-qualifying numbers by comparison, and therefore depth, to make some noise at a state meet. 

The Red Devils did not bolster its roster by having any additional swimmers qualify for state at the “last chance” meet in Lyman on Feb. 7, as hoped, although there were several swimmers with times that were very close to achieving the state-standard marks who narrowly missed out. The future does look bright for the Red Devils, however.

Of the 19 team members, Reed Robinson is the lone senior and Colter Camphouse is the only junior. With the success achieved by underclassmen, especially down the stretch in the latter part of the season, Red Devil swimming certainly has developed a foundation to build upon. Hopefully, in the next few years, the Red Devils will be able to add some divers to the mix to score additional points in competitions throughout the season, though assistant boys’ coach and girls’ head coach Kate O’Rourke-Schmidt has previously told the Herald that the number of divers has declined with most programs across the state and she doesn’t anticipate that trend to reverse itself.

The Class 3A state meet will also take place in the Razor City with preliminaries today and finals set for tomorrow, Saturday, Feb. 16. The 3A field is comprised of Lander, Riverton, Sublette County, Kemmerer, Lyman, Powell, Cody, Worland, Rawlins, Douglas, Buffalo and Newcastle, with perennial powerhouse Lander attempting to win the state title for an amazing 23rd consecutive time.

Camphouse leads the way for the Red Devils in qualified events and is eligible to compete in the 100-, 200- and 500-yard freestyle, along with the 100-yard backstroke. Freshman Jaxon Nicholls, the 4A West Conference champion in the 100-yard backstroke, will compete in that event and is also qualified in the 50-yard freestyle and the 200-yard individual medley. Sophomore Ben Cook also met the qualifying standard in the 200-yard individual medley and the 100-yard breaststroke. Fellow sophomores Vince Bloomfield, Connor Fackrell and Jayden Cornell will compete in the 100-yard freestyle, the 500-yard freestyle and the 100-yard butterfly, respectively, at the state meet.

In addition, Bloomfield, Cook, Cornell and Camphouse will team up for both the 200-yard and 400-yard freestyle relay races. Nicholls, Cook, Bloomfield and freshman Gage Beachler will race in the 200-yard medley relay for EHS at the state meet.

Individual and team results will appear in an issue of the Herald next week.