Tigers sophomore finishes season; senior to compete for ninth place

 

MINNEAPOLIS — Two members of the Albert Lea girls’ swim team made their way to the campus of the University of Minnesota on Thursday to swim in the prelims of the 2018 girls’ swim and dive state meet.

Senior Emily Taylor and sophomore Jaeda Koziolek each qualified for state with automatic qualifying times at the Section 1A meet last Friday. Taylor in the 100-yard breaststroke and Koziolek in the 100-yard backstroke.

To qualify for the championship finals on Friday, swimmers needed to finish in the top eight of all participants. Swimmers could also qualify for the consolation finals by finishing in 9th-16th.

Koziolek, who qualified with a time of 1:00.88, was the first to get her chance at a Friday swim. Competing against seven other swimmers in the first of three heats, Koziolek was neck and neck with a handful of the swimmers in her heat. Four of the seven swimmers were separated by less than a half second. Koziolek finished the heat in seventh place with a time of 1:00.68. By the end of the third heat, her time had slipped down to 17th on the leaderboard, as she narrowly missed grabbing a spot in the consolation final by just .05 seconds.

The finish ends Koziolek’s season, but with multiple years of state experience as a sophomore, she will continue to be a force over the final two years of her high school career.

Taylor was up in the very next event, qualifying for the race with a time of 1:09.08. One of three swimmers in the third of three heats, Taylor knew what she needed to beat to earn a spot in the championship final at the start of the race. Although she took fourth place in her heat with a time of 1:08.91, Taylor just missed out on a spot in the finals, coming in at ninth place overall — only .48 seconds behind the eighth-place finisher.

Taylor will swim again in the consolation finals of the 100-yard breaststroke starting at noon Friday and will eye a ninth-place state finish to end her high school career.