Platte County freshman Grisham Gutshall wasted little time in posting an impressive time in Tuesday’s season-opening quad at Platte County Community Center North. The Pirates won 4 of 12 individual events overall and finished second out of four teams behind only Kearney.
Platte County senior Jack Hokanson swims the backstroke during the 200-yard individual medley race in Tuesday’s quad at Platte County Community Center North.
Gutshall posted the most impressive individual victory for Platte County, touching the wall in the 100-yard butterfly in 58.31 seconds. Still in the earlygoing of the season, he now owns the No. 4 Class 1 MSHSAA Swimming and Diving Championships qualifying time after the first meet of his career. The Pirates ended up with five consideration times for state with senior Jack Hokanson (200 IM) and all three relays all going under the standards.
A qualifier each of the past two years in individual events, Hokanson won the 200 IM in 2:12.48.
Guthsall and Hokanson were also on all three stacked-up relays for Platte County in an effort to set a baseline for the season. The Pirates won the 200 freestyle with a combination of those two plus senior Finn Smith and sophomore Beau Jonkman, part of two state relays last year. Their mark of 1:42.25 ranks No. 10 in Class 1 right now.
Finishing second to Kearney in the other two relay races, Platte County’s 400 freestyle team of Hokanson, Gutshall, senior Landon Steffel and junior Nathan Guzman finished second but now holds the No. 7 qualifying mark, while the 200 medley team of Hokanson, Gutshall, Smith and Jonkman sits No. 11. Smith added a runnerup showing for the Pirates in the 100 breaststroke (1:17.41), while Guzman (1:02.53, 100 freestyle) and Jonkman (1:09.05, 100 backstroke) took third in individual races.
Platte County must replace the two most decorated swimmers in program history after graduating both Deacon Gutshall and Palmer Keith off of last year’s record-setting team in addition to Cobie Parkin.
