Austin Packers boys swimming and diving team takes 5th place at Big 9 Meet Friday and Saturday

The Austin Packers boys swimming and diving team traveled to Northfield Friday for the diving portion of the Big 9 Conference Meet, and to the Rochester Rec Center for the swimming portion Saturday, and it was the Packers taking fifth place with a total of 221 team points.

Rochester Century was the runaway winner of the meet with 476 points over the two days of competition, followed by Rochester Mayo a distant second with 312 points.  Northfield was third with 284 team points, followed by Mankato East in fourth with 252 points, followed by the Packers in fifth and Owatonna in sixth with 202 points.  Mankato West, Winona, Red Wing, Faribault, Rochester John Marshall and Albert Lea rounded out the team standings from the two days of competition.

High finishers for Austin in the meet included the club’s 200 medley relay team of Brent Dahl, Winston Walkup, Joey Hilkin and Lucas Meyers, who took fifth with a time of 1:44.17, Zach Evenson finished eighth for the Packers in the 200 freestyle with a time of 1:53.25 and and Kenny Cabeen earned a fifth-place finish in the 50 freestyle with a time of 23.14 seconds.

In 1-meter diving, Riley Ferguson placed sixth for Austin Friday with a final score of 311.45, Cabeen was fifth in the 100 freestyle with a time of 50.93 seconds and teammate Zach Evenson was eighth with a time of 51.64.  Brent Dahl took fifth for the Packers in the 500 freestyle with a time of 5:05.26, the 200 freestyle relay team of Zach Evenson, Lucas Meyers, Joey Hilkin and Kenny Cabeen came in fifth Saturday with a time of 1:34.98, and Dahl was fourth in the 100 backstroke with a time of 56.53 seconds, and Winston Walkup took fifth with a time of 56.71.  And, Austin’s 400 freestyle relay team of Walkup, Zach Evenson, Brent Dahl and Kenny Cabeen took fifth Saturday with a time of 3:28.45.

The Packers will return to action at the Section 1A boys swimming and diving meet, which is scheduled to get underway with the swimming preliminaries at the Rochester Rec Center at noon on Wednesday, February 22nd, the preliminaries and finals for diving will be held at Mankato East High School Thursday, February 23rd, starting at 6:00 p.m. that evening and the swimming finals will start at noon on Friday, February 24th back at the Rochester Rec Center.