Faribault Swimmers Aiming for Top Five Finish at State

The Faribault Falcon girls swimming and diving team placed 6th at last year's Class A State Tournament and are hoping to improve upon that impressive showing.

Head Coach Ken Hubert has crunched the numbers and believes his team could finish as high as second.  Everything has to fall into place for that to happen.

Visitation of Mendota Heights is going after it's fifth consecutive Class A state title and Edina hopes to repeat in Class 2A.

Faribault 200 yard medley relay team of Verity Wray-Raabolle, Gesa Wilden, Megan Gehrke and Bre Bresnahan have the second fastest qualifying time in the field and are only three tenths of a second behind the top time registered by Delano.

Section 1 Class A Swimmer of the Meet Abby Larson is a very talented freshman and has logged the fourth fastest time in the 200 yard freestyle.

Sophomore foreign exchange student Gesa Wilden and senior Megan Gehrke are competing in the 50 yard freestyle.

Gehrke was All-State in the event last year and will have to see her time drop a bit to finish in the top 8.

Wilden has the second fastest time in the event in Class A and only three ladies have gone below 24 seconds this season.

Wilden and freshman Verity-Wray-Raabolle are competing in the 100 yard Butterfly where Wilden has the fastest time recorded this season.

Gehrke  has qualified in the 100 yard freestyle and is one of just five seniors who will participate at state in the event.  Her 53.69 qualifying time is good enough to make the top five.

Larson will swim the 500 yard freestyle where her time is fourth best.

The 200 Yard Freestyle Relay of Larson, Gehrke, Malia Stone and Bresnahan has a top six time.  Bresnahan did not participate in two individual events in the Section Tournament to make the relay stronger.

Raabolle will participate in the 100 yard backstroke, one of 13 competitors who have broken the one minute mark.

Bresnahan was second in the 100 yard breaststroke last year and has the sixth fastest time going into this year's state meet.

The 400 Yard Freestyle Relay  of Larson, Wilden, Wray-Raabolle and Annika Vininski  has the 9th fastest qualifying time.

The key is getting all these swimmers to the finals and then they can go for it.