Platte County simultaneously saw a lot of time drops and the quality of competition in the COMO Invitational this past weekend at Mizzou Aquatic Center in Columbia. The Pirates’ lone finalists were senior Jack Hokanson and freshman Grisham Gutshall — both in the 100-yard butterfly — while a pair of relays were alternates but just outside the top 16.
Platte County freshman Grisham Gutshall swims in the 100-yard butterfly during the COMO Invitational this past weekend at Mizzou Aquatic Center in Columbia.
Hokanson and Gutshall topped the B final Saturday and finished ninth and 10th, respectively, with season-best times.
The two were actually flipped in Friday’s preliminaries with Gutshall posting the No. 11 qualifying time at 54.61 seconds and Hokanson at No. 12 at 54.72 seconds. Both were improved the next day with Hokanson at 54.16 and Gutshall just a fraction of a second back at 54.20.
Incidentally, those times from the COMO finals now rank as the No. 11 and No. 12 Class 1 MSHSAA Swimming and Diving Championships consideration times. Swimmers are listed to just four total events in the state meet with a maximum of two individual swims.
Platte County’s 200 freestyle relay of Hokanson, Gutshall, senior Finn Smith and sophomore Beau Jonkman just missed the finals after posting the No. 17 qualifying time in preliminaries. The Pirates came in at 1:36.04 and were a quarter of a second off their current season-best and 0.16 of a second behind Notre Dame Regional for the final spot.
In the 200 medley play with the same combination of swimmers, Platte County finished 18th and exactly matched the current state qualifying consideration time from earlier in the season at 1:46.42. That currently puts the Pirates 16th in Class 1.
Hokanson set a season-best in the 200 IM preliminaries at 2:06.43, cutting more than 2 1/2 seconds to move up to No. 21 in Class 1 for the event. He posted the 22nd-fastest time at COMO.
In the 200 freestyle, Guthsall set a PR by more than 1 1/4 of a second and came in 24th in the prelims at 1:53.20, a mark now 24th in Class 1. Smith posted the first state cut of his career in the 100 breaststroke preliminaries at 1:10.48, going just .01 under the standard.
