Platte County ended up 13th with 69 points in Saturday’s home meet at Platte County Community Center North — just 26 outside of the top 10. There were 17 teams total at the Platte County Invitational, and the Pirates ended up with a pair of top 10 relays and one individual top 10 finish.
However, the real progress for Platte County’s small roster came the previous weekend in the highly competitive COMO Invitational at the Mezzo Aquatic Center in Columbia. The Pirates didn’t have any entries advance out of preliminaries, but both the 200-yard medley and 200-yard freestyle relays posted state consideration times, while junior Beau Jonkman bettered one of his existing marks and added the first of his career in the 50-yard freestyle.
Jonkman owns the only prior Class 1 MSHSAA Swimming and Diving Championships experience on this year’s roster, having swam on state-qualifying relays each of the past two seasons.
Platte County still must make improvements, but hitting the consideration marks provides a start for a roster with just one senior. The Pirates’ combination of Jonkman, junior Dillyn Jacobson , sophomore Owen Rowles and freshman Ethan Morton posted a mark of 1 minute, 48.28 seconds in the COMO Invitational prelims, while the 200 medley of Jonkman, Rowles, Morton and freshman Jacob Stone finished in 2 minutes, 3.87 seconds.
Both were under the consideration cuts with 200 freestyle team now at No. 46 in Class 1 and the medley relay at No. 54. The top 32 in all events qualify with swimmers limited to four with a maximum of two as an individual.
Platte County’s 200 freestyle posted a season-best by more than 7 seconds, while the 200 medley shaved more than 2 1/2 seconds off the previous fastest time this fall.
Jonkman dropped time from his 100 backstroke mark and now owns a season-best of 1:02.28 from the COMO Invitational, while he hit the state cut in the 50 freestyle for the first time in his career at 23.93.
Like the relays, Jonkman sits outside the top 32 in both the 100 backstroke (No. 47) and 50 freestyle (No. 69), but improvements could push him toward the first individual state qualifying opportunity of his career in addition to fields narrowing as swimmers make event choices.
As a sophomore, Jonkman’s career-best of 59.90 did not earn him a spot at state.
