Deacon Gutshall may have inadvertently discovered his calling in the pool.
Platte County sophomore Palmer Keith makes a turn during the North Kansas City Invitational finals on Saturday.
Platte County’s budding sophomore came within seconds of a knocking out a 15-year-old program record in Friday’s 500-yard freestyle preliminaries in the North Kansas City Invitational. He qualified for Saturday’s finals third with a time of 4:57.84 becoming the second in program history to go below 5 minutes in the event and first since Nathanial Savage set the school record in 2008.
Gutshall placed seventh in the A final at 5:01.68 in an event he utilized to gain additional experience in last season’s Class 1 Missouri State Swimming and Diving Championships. He made the field as an individual and nearly qualified for the finals, which would have basically guaranteed him honorable mention all-state honors.
Now, Gutshall continues to go lower and lower with his career-best time, which currently ranks in the top 16 for Class 1 this season. Savage’s Platte County record could be next.
Platte County senior Collin Burton swims the butterfly during a meet Wednesday at Belton.
For now, Gutshall set career-bests in both the 500 and 200 freestyles over the weekend and might now qualify as a long-distance specialist. He made the B final in the latter event, and Platte County sophomore Palmer Keith also made the A Final in two events. They were both on the 200 medley (B Final) and 400 freestyle (A Final) relays.
The six finalists scored a total of 80 team points for Platte County, which finished 13th out of 22 teams. Notably, the Pirates were eight in front of former conference rival Kearney.
Keith set season-bests in both the 100 butterfly and 100 breaststroke. He recorded Platte County’s best finish in the 100-yard breaststroke, placing third in 1:02.96 after being slightly faster in the prelims with the No. 2 qualifying time of 1:02.62 — also a career-best. He added a seventh-place showing in the 100 butterfly (55.58).
Platte County senior Gage Jonkman swims in the 500-yard freestyle during a meet Wednesday at Belton.
The top eight in preliminaries made the A Final while 9-16 were in the B Final.
Gutshall made the B Final cut in his other individual event and placed 13th overall in 1:53.04, recording a state consideration qualifying time after not being elegible in that event a year earlier when when butterfly and backstroke appeared to be his potential specialties.
In addition to the individual showings, Gutshall and Keith were on Platte County’s 400 freestyle team along with seniors Collin Burton and Gage Jonkman. The quartet set a season-best of 3:29.98 to place sixth overall in the A Final. The Pirates also sent the same group to the B Final of the 200 medley and finished 12th in 1:49.54, about a second off the season-best time set earlier in the week. They were actually slightly faster in prelims at 1:49.22
Platte County’s 400 freestyle went nearly 3 seconds faster than preliminaries in the finals to move from the eighth and final qualifier to sixth.
Platte County senior Carson Howe swims the butterfly during a meet Wednesday at Belton.
Belton Pentagular
Platte County dominated the competition, including a trio of Suburban Conference White Division foes, during a meet Wednesday in Belton. The Pirates totaled up 617 points and put up seven state consideration cuts in the process and winning 9 of 12 events overall.
The 50-yard freestyle featured a sweep of the top three spots for Platte County with Keith (first, 23.25), Gutshall (second, 23.95) and senior Carson Howe (third, 24.19) all hitting state cuts in the process. Gutshall won the 100 freestyle in another state time of 52.95 with Burton in second at 53.92, while Keith hit a cut while winning the 100 backstroke in 58.43 — nearly 6 full seconds in front of the runnerup.
In addition to the super sophomores, Jonkman (500 freestyle, 5:38.43 and 100 breaststroke, 1:11.40) also recorded a pair of wins for Platte County, which also swept the relays. In addition to his runnerup showing in the 100 freestyle, Burton put up a state consideration time in winning the 200 IM (2:17.03). Other swimmers with top-three finishes for Platte County included junior Brayden Carter (third, 200 freestyle), Howe (second, 100 butterfly), senior Austin Hough (third, 500 freestyle) and sophomore Cobie Parkin (second, 100 breaststroke).
Platte County junior Brayden Carter swims the freestyle during a meet Wednesday at Belton.
Platte County’s 200 medley team of Keith, Jonkman, Burton and Howe opened the meet with a season-best 1:48.58 to win by more than 10 seconds. Howe, Gutshall, Burton and Keith were the first-place 200 freestyle team (1:38.35) and Carter, Gutshall and seniors Joey Croy and Weston Grimes were on the 400 freestyle team that recorded nearly a 23-second margin of victory.
Pirate Invitational
Platte County also traveled to Belton last Saturday for the Pirate Invitational and finished fourth out of eight teams in the Gold Division — the more competitive of two groupings.
Blue Springs South won with 343 1/2 points, while Platte County totaled 272 1/2 despite a DQ in the medley relay. The top finishes for Platte County included victories in season-best state consideration times for Keith in both the 200 IM (2:01.35) and 100 breaststroke (1:03.87), while the 400 freestyle ended up being the only top-five relay on the day with Keith, Gutshall, Burton and Jonkman finishing third in what was at the time a season-best 3:34.64.
Those four also combined for the other five top-five finishes for Platte County.
Burton (fourth, 59.12) and Gutshall (fifth, 59.34) both set season-bests and put up consideration state times in the 100 butterfly. Gutshall had improved his career-best time with a fourth-place finish in the 500 freestyle at 5:06.41, which he bettered twice over the weekend at NKC.
Jonkman came in fourth in the 100 backstroke (1:03.07) and claimed fifth in the 200 freestyle (1:59.91). Both of those were season-best state consideration times for Platte County.
