By TYLER DRUMMOND
of The Gazette
The Stevens Point Area Senior High School boys swimming team finished third at the Wisconsin Valley Conference swim meet last Saturday at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point's swimming pool.
Rhinelander took the top spot with a total of 322 points, followed by a combined Wausau East and West team with 307 points and then SPASH with 269 points. Behind the Panthers were Wisconsin Rapids Lincoln with 182, Tomahawk with 117 and Lakeland with 101.
"I knew it was going to be tough for us to win," said SPASH head coach Rich Burhite. "We drop off a lot at our eighth and ninth spots so it was tough to gain points."
Some notables for the Panthers were Phillip Potter, a sophomore, who won the 200-yard freestyle at 1 minute 50.58 seconds, beating the second-place finisher by nearly five seconds. Potter also took the 500-yard freestyle with a time of 5 minutes 06.89 seconds.
Josh Siebert, a senior, won the 50-yard freestyle for the Panthers at 22.45 seconds. He also was victorious in the 100 freestyle with a time of 50.80 seconds.
The final victory for the Panthers came during the 400-yard freestyle relay. The team of junior Evan Prince, sophomore Aaron Tetzloff, Siebert and Potter took the relay with a time of 3 minutes 29.25 seconds, eight seconds faster than the second-place team from Rhinelander.
"We had some real good times," said Burhite. "However, we also had some times that weren't so great."
The Panthers are set to advance a few swimmers to the state meet as Phillip Potter and Josh Siebert are primed to enter the state meet. In addition, both Evan Prince and Aaron Tetzloff have an outside chance of making it as individuals, but both should make it along with Potter and Siebert in the 400 freestyle relay.
The Panthers will hit the pool for sectionals on Saturday when they will swim against two teams from Eau Claire, a tough La Crosse squad and Menominee at 3 p.m. in Hudson.