Platte County senior Jack Hokanson finished first in both of his individual races during this past weekend’s Suburban Conference White Division Championships at Henly Aquatic Center in Independence. He highlighted the Pirates’ five victories in 12 total events to cap the regular season.
Platte County sophomore Beau Jonkman starts the 100-yard backstroke during the Suburban Conference White Division Championships on Saturday at Henley Aquatic Center in Independence.
Despite the top-end dominance, Platte County ended up third out of six teams in the final standings with 292 points, still without the depth to earn the program’s first White Division championship since 2022.
Hokanson (200-yard individual medley and 100-yard butterfly) and sophomore Beau Jonkman (100-yard backstroke) won the first individual conference titles of their career, while freshman Grisham Gutshall added a pair of top-three finishes for Platte County, which also won the 200-yard and 400-yard freestyle relays. The Pirates’ set six season-best times to improve qualifying positions for the Class 1 MSHSAA Swimming and Diving Championships, scheduled for November 13-15 at Rec-Plex in St. Peters.
Also part of the two winning relays, Hokanson appears set to advance back to state in at least one individual for the third consecutive. He coasted into the finals of the 200 IM with the top qualifying time out of Friday’s preliminaries and then finished first in Saturday’s finals at 2 minutes, 5.28 seconds, now the 22nd-ranked state consideration time in Class 1 and down 1.06 seconds from his prior career best set earlier this season.
Hokanson came in first in the 100 butterfly (53.57) with Gutshall third (55.48). Those two currently rank in the top 16 in Class 1 for the event with Hokanson setting a career-best at conference, dropping a little more than a half of a second.
Guthsall added a PR in the 200 freestyle, finishing second in 1:52.23 and cutting nearly a full second off his previous best time. He currently ranks 28th in Class 1 with that mark.
Platte County freshman Grisham Gutshall swims in the 200-yard freestyle during the Suburban Conference White Division Championships on Saturday at Henley Aquatic Center in Independence.
Jonkman’s victory came in the 100 backstroke in a career-best 1:00.25. He went into the finals with the top qualifying time and then dropped 1.11 seconds off his state consideration time.
In an effort to improve chances of advancing to the Class 1 MSHSAA Swimming and Diving Championships in an individual event for the first time, Jonkman then went to a “last-chance” meet on Tuesday and went under 1 minute for the first time and now sits at No. 50 with a mark of 59.90. A total of 32 qualify for state in each event, but swimmers are limited to four events total with a maximum of two being individual events. The final fields will be set this weekend.
Platte County appears to have all three relays locked in for Class 1 but did miss out on significant team points at conference with the 200 medley relay disqualified to open Saturday’s finals. However, even a win wouldn’t have been enough to catch second-place Raytown (348) with Grain Valley running away with the team title (448).
However, Platte County’s combination of Hokanson, Gutshall, Jonkman and senior Finn Smith lowered the 200 freestyle relay’s Class 1 consideration time by 2.32, finishing first in 1:34.70 to edge Grain Valley by a little over a quarter of a second. The Pirates currently rank 15th.
Hokanson, Gutshall, Jonkman and junior Nathan Guzman also posted a season-best while winning the 400 freestyle relay in 3:37.43, an improvement of 3.69 seconds that puts the Pirates at 27th in Class 1.
In addition to the top-three finishes, Platte County also saw Smith place fourth in both the 100 breaststroke (1:12.11) and 100 freestyle (55.93), while Jonkman matched that placement in the 50 freestyle (23.61). Guzman finished fifth for the Pirates in the 200 freestyle at 2:09.71.
