A handful of Lawton Public Schools’ (LPS) swimmers have qualified for OSSAA State Swim Meet after excelling at the Regional Meet in Duncan this past weekend.
LPS swim will be represented well during the annual Oklahoma state meet as all of the MacArthur High School swimmers and one Eisenhower High School athlete have qualified. This is not a new accomplishment as LPS swim has been on the rise and was represented well at last year’s meet led by a host of Highlanders.
For the MHS girls team, freshman Addison Luper finished first in the 100 yard butterfly and second in the 200 individual medley to automatically qualify. She and teammates Emily Morales (junior), Lili Boothe (junior), and Maddy Strickland (sophomore) finished fifth in the 200 meter relay and ninth in the 200 freestyle relay to qualify as a team. Morales, Boothe, and Strickland are all alternate qualifiers in their respective events.
The Highlander boys were paced by sophomore Rohan Marriano, who finished second in the 200 freestyle and 500 freestyle to qualify for the state meet. Teammate and senior Travis Murphy also qualified with an 18th place in the 100 butterfly to punch his ticket to the big meet. Marianno and Murphy also qualified in the 200 medley relay with teammates Joe Martinez (sophomore) and Evan Raynor (freshman).
For the EHS team, junior Brayden Ratliff qualified in the 100 yard backstroke and 200 individual medley and will compete Friday morning in Jenks. The Eagles also had Hope Cho (sophomore), Micaila Enriquez (freshman), Grace Cho (senior), and Charles Hinton (sophomore) compete at the regional.
The Lawton High Wolverines had a group of swimmers put up good results at the regional, but none were able to qualify for state. Paola Rivera (freshman), Riley Jones (senior), and Micah Wilkerson (freshman) swam hard during their respective events at last week’s meet.
Good luck to all of the LPS swimmers competing this week at the state meet at the Jenks Public Schools Aquatic Center. The Class 5A preliminaries will be Thursday starting at 4 p.m. and the 5A finals will start at 5 p.m. on Friday. The 6A preliminaries will start at 10 a.m. on Friday and the finals will start at 2 p.m. on Saturday.