Hornets, Mustangs claim State championships

2008-09 boys swimming and diving season comes to an end as Breck/Blake claims Class A title and Hurley sets new individual medley record; Edina repeats in Class AA, while Bachman shaves breaststroke mark at state meets. Class A Breck/Blake unseated St. Thomas Academy's stranglehold on the Class A team title by winning all three relays and three individual events. The co-op of the two private schools, Breck School of Golden Valley and The Blake School of Minneapolis, finished with 296 points to St. Thomas Academy's 267. The Mendota Heights-based Academy had won the last four titles and all but one since 1999. Junior Nathan Yueh won both the 200-yard freestyle and the 500-yard freestyle for Breck/Blake. He had finished second in the former event last year and also won the latter event in 2008. Eighth-grader Mitchell Foster won the third individual event, the 100-yard backstroke, for Breck/Blake. Junior Tim Walker of Dassel-Cokato/Litchfield was also a double-winner. He earned gold medals in both the 50-yard freestyle and 100-yard freestyle. Red Wing junior Turner Eckstrom successfully defended his one-meter diving title. The big story of the meet was Fergus Falls sophomore Mike Hurley. Not only did he win both the 200-yard individual medley and the 100-yard breaststroke, the same events he won in 2008, but he won the IM in Class A state meet record time. His final time of 1:49.58 was more than six-and-a-half seconds better than the previous mark that he set in last year's finals. Class AA Edina and Minnetonka duplicated their 2008 finishes - first and second, respectively - and two Class AA state meet records were established. The Hornets of Edina finished with 268 points. The Skippers of Minnetonka garnered 225 points. Edina's 400-yard freestyle team was a winner, and junior Drew Johnson was a double-winner in the 100-yard freestyle and 200-yard freestyle. Rosemount won the other two relays, the 200-yard freestyle relay and the 200-yard medley relay. The latter relay was fast - fast enough to establish a new Class AA state meet record with a 1:34.26 performance. That's one-hundredth of a second better than the mark set by a Minnetonka squad in 1998. Rochester John Marshall senior Kendrick Bachman also won two events, one of them in state meet record time. Bachman swam the 100-yard breaststroke in 55.84 seconds which was just one-hundredth of a second from equaling the all-time record. He also took the gold in the 100-yard butterfly. The meet was conducted March 5-7 at the University of Minnesota Aquatic Center.