Deacon Gutshall continued a trend of producing his most elite performances on the biggest stages.
Over the weekend, Platte County’s junior distance star continued to lower his school records in both the 200-yard and 500-yard freestyle while earning a pair of medals in an elite field at the COMO Invitational at Mizzou Aquatic Center. Most individual swimming events featured more than 100 entries, providing a challenge to even earn a top-16 time and a spot in either the A or B final.
Platte County junior Palmer Keith competes in the 100-yard breaststroke during the COMO Invitational this past weekend at Mizzou Aquatic Center in Columbia.
Gutshall made the A final in the 200 freestyle, while the 500 freestyle was limited to finals only.
In addition, Platte County junior Palmer Keith finished top eight in the 200 individual medley and came in 13th overall (fifth in the B final) for the 100 breaststroke. However, many members of the Pirates’ roster, including junior Cobie Parkin and sophomores Alexander Emmerich, Finn Smith and Landon Steffel, produced time drops in preliminaries to show overall progress for a team without a senior.
However, Gutshall and Palmer scored the only team points for Platte County.
Gutshall opened the impressive showings in Friday’s preliminaries for the 200 freestyle, cutting more than a second off his prior career-best and lowering his school record all the way to 1 minutes, 45.26 seconds (previously 1:45.45). He broke the 1:46 mark again and for the second time in his career during Saturday’s finals (1:45.77) and held seed, qualifying sixth and then finishing sixth. He now owns the No. 5 consideration time in the event for the Class 1 Missouri State Swimming and Diving Championships.
In addition, Gutshall went 4:45.96 in his heat of the 500 freestyle to finish fifth. He also pushed his school record mark down another 3 full seconds after entering with a career-best of 4:49.02. The new season-best mark ranks him No. 3in Class 1.
Platte County sophomore Jack Hokanson swims the freestyle during the COMO Invitational this past weekend at Mizzou Aquatic Center in Columbia.
Guthsall’s impressive weekend also included posting season-best state consideration times in the 50 freestyle (22.86, No. 27 in Class 1) as the lead leg of Platte County’s 200 freestyle relay and 100 freestyle (49.19, No. 10 in Class 1) as the opener for the Pirates’ 400 freestyle relay.
Platte County’s freestyle relay teams of Gutshall, Keith, Parkin and sophomore Jack Hokanson set season-bests in both the 200 (1:35.48, No. 13 in Class 1) and 400 (3:28.83, No. 12 in Class 1). Both finished 19th in preliminaries and did not make the finals.
Keith qualified fifth out of the 200 IM preliminaries with a mark of 1:56.73 — just off his career-best but a season-low that now ranks him No. 3 in Class 1. He finished sixth in the finals at 1:57.26.
In the 100 butterfly, Keith also swam faster in preliminaries (1:00.72) than finals (1:01.01).
Hokanson competed in the same events in Keith and posted new career-best times and state consideration cuts in both. He was 37th in the 100 butterfly preliminaries at 57.84, now the No. 40 time in Class 1, and 40th in the 200 IM at 2:11.66, now the No. 54 time. He set himself up to potentially make a state field in one of the events with the fastest 32 making the cut, but with swimmers limited to a maximum of two individual events, those opting for other opportunities could open up a spot for Hokanson, who cut 3 1/2 seconds off his IM mark.
Liberty Quadrangular
Guthsall recorded Platte County’s only individual victory in Tuesday’s meet with Liberty, Liberty North and Smithville. He placed first in the 100 backstroke at 58.88.
For the first time since early in the season, Platte County also loaded up the 200 medley relay with the top four of Gutshall, Keith, Hokanson and Parkin, placing second in a 1:47.35, a season-best that now ranks No. 22 in Class 1. Hokanson added a career-best and new state consideration cut in the 500 freestyle, finishing third in 5:28.31.
Rockhurst 785, Belton 409, Platte County 399
The Class 2 powerhouse program dominated Wednesday’s triangular at Belton High School.
Gutshall again earned Platte County’s only individual victory, topping the 200 IM field with a time of 2:07.46. The Pirates’ 400 freestyle relay Gutshall, Hokanson, Keith and Parkin finished second in 3:41.32, the only one of three relays where the Hawklets didn’t have at least the top two teams.
