Gutshall, Keith turn in best collection of individual state swims in program history

By most measures, Platte County turned in the best team state performance in program history last week.

The exceptional junior duo of Deacon Gutshall and Palmer Keith combined for three top-five finishes in the Class 1 MSHSAA Swimming and Diving Championships at Rec-Plex in St. Peters, and the Pirates placed 16th in the final standings with 51 team points. Gutshall and Keith each matched the previous best individual all-state finish in program history (fifth), while Gutshall also set a new standard after placing third in the 500-yard freestyle.

In addition, Platte County came up just short of placing a pair of relays into the consolation final. The Pirates kept momentum going from recent team showings while also building up experience on a senior-less roster, which also saw sophomore juniors Cobie Parkin, Zach Linville and Dylan Smith and sophomores Jack Hokanson and Landon Steffel make their state debuts.

Gutshall and Keith accounted for all of the team points — also combining to lower three school records in the process — in easily the best collection of individual state swims in program history.

Continuing rapid progression in distance freestyle, Gutshall garnered the second and third all-state medals of his career. He set school records in both the 200 and 500 freestyle in Thursday’s preliminaries before holding seed in both races during Friday’s finals.

The third-place finish in the 500 freestyle came in 4 minutes, 43.02 seconds, a day after he set the school record at 4:41.53. He entered with a career-best of 4:45.96 from earlier this season, meaning he knocked another 4 1/2 seconds off the mark that has consistently gone lower over the past two seasons.

Prior to 2022, only Nathanial Savage had gone under 5 minutes in the event for Platte County.

Gutshall also made the championship final of the 200 freestyle for the first time in his career. He set a school record first in the preliminaries (1:44.50) and then swam slightly faster in the final (1:44.39) to hold fifth place, which at the time matched Keith and 2018 graduate Caden DeLay for the best finish in program history.

Kearney sophomore Whitaker Steward — a future U.S. Olympic team hopeful — won both the 200 and 500 freestyle races, repeating as state champion in the longer race.

Keith quickly followed with another fifth-place medal for Platte County in the 200 individual medley. He improved his school record in the event during preliminaries (1:55.82) and qualified fourth for the finals before dropping one spot after finishing Friday’s race in 1:56.10.

Both of those times were better than his career-best of 1:56.73 going into the meet.

In addition to the all-state finish, Keith also qualified for the consolation final of the 100 breaststroke and placed 10th. He went 1:00.22 in the preliminaries and 1:00.39 in his final race of the weekend after setting the school record just under two weeks earlier in the Suburban Conference White Division Championships at 59.83, finally breaking DeLay’s mark and becoming the second in program history to break the 1-minute mark in the event.

Keith now owns the school record in the 200 IM, 100 breaststroke and 100 butterfly.

With swimmers limited to a maximum of four events — a maximum of two individual — at state, Gutshall and Keith also teamed with Parkin and Hokanson on both Platte County’s 200 freestyle and 400 freestyle relay teams. The quartet came in 17th in preliminaries for the shorter of the two races at 1:34.82 — just off the season best of 1:34.33. The Pirates were a little more than half a second off the tie for 15th between Westminster Christian and Kearney for the final two spots in the consolation final.

In the 400 freestyle relay, Platte County came in 19th (3:29.30) and were again just off the season-best time for the same group but well back of the top 16 cutoff.

Because of the limited on individual races, Hokanson also earned an opportunity to compete in both the 100 butterfly and 500 freestyle races. The top 32 make the state preliminaries in each event, and as others made choices, he moved up the ranks and into the field.

Hokanson came in 25th in the 100 butterfly (56.36, just off his career-best) and 32nd in the 500 freestyle (career-best 5:15.40 after entering with a qualifying mark of 5:21.42).

Coburn ended up swimming on all three of Platte County’s state-qualifying relays, teaming with Linville, Smith and Steffel in the 200 medley preliminaries. The Pirates were 31st in 1:56.73.

However, those small glimpses of opportunity to state can pay dividends down the road.

Gutshall broke the 4:50 mark for the first time in his 500 freestyle preliminary to set a school record at 4:49.57. He qualified for the final in seventh and then moved up to sixth to next day and lower the mark to 4:49.02.

Gutshall qualified for state as a freshman, sneaking into the 500 freestyle field and then narrowly missing a spot in the consolation final. The experience helped shift much of his individual focus to distance freestyle as a sophomore — a move that continues to pay off.

Motivated by not having a race on the second day of state as a freshman, Gutshall came back and ended up sixth in the Class 1 500 freestyle last fall and ninth in the 200 freestyle after winning the consolation final.

Now all-state in each of his first three seasons, Keith has placed seventh, fifth and fifth in the 200 IM in three tries; 10th and ninth in the 100 breaststroke the past two seasons; and 16th in the 100 butterfly as a freshman. He has a chance to be a finalist in all eight individual state races in his career with similar showings next season.

Platte County did not have a top-16 relay for the first time since 2016. However, Gutshall and Keith were on the 10th-place 400-meter freestyle team and the 14th-place 200 freestyle team in 2022. Keith also swam on honorable mention all-state 200 and 400 freestyle relay teams as a freshman. Gutshall swam on the 2021 200 medley relay team that did not place in the top 16 in preliminaries.

However, Platte County scored at least one team point for the eighth straight season, including all seven since the state split into two classifications. The Pirates were 13th in 2022 with a program-record 63 state points, matching the overall finish of the 2017 team (61 points).

Platte County ended up just seven points out of 13th this year but maintained a consistency from recent seasons. The Pirates were tied for 35th just two points in 2020 then went to 17th in 2021 with 37 points to last year’s record finish. The program’s other top run came starting in 2017 then followed by finishing 16th in 2018 (53 points) and 2019 (40 points).

In the final year before the split, Platte County scored one point while competing against every program in the state.