Nearly half of the Powell High School boys’ swim and dive team punched their tickets for the state championships in February during its opening weekend in Park County, qualifying five individuals in 14 events at a home triangular on Friday and at a pentathlon in Cody on Saturday.

Starting the season at home on Friday the Panthers had a number of strong performances, including three individual event winners.

Those came from Will Fuller in the 50 freestyle in a time of 23.9 seconds, Tyler Kruger in the 100 butterfly in 1:04.51 and Hugh Carpenter in the 100 free in 52.93. All of those winning times met the qualifying criteria in each event.

“They were doing some really good swims based on their end of year state times last year for the first meet out this year,” coach Stephanie Warren said. “We’re very pleased with them, coming in and starting the season not far from where they left off. And some of them were even better.”

Additional qualifying marks came from Carpenter taking second in the 200 IM (2:17.28), Dayton Lawrence qualifying by 3/10 of a point in diving with a score of 160.3 and Trystan Preator in the 100 fly (1:07.1).

Powell also took the top spot in two relays, winning the 200 medley relay with the quartet of Fuller, Carpenter, Preator and Kruger winning in 1:54.45 and the team of Carpenter, Gabe Buchholz, Preator and Fuller winning the 200 free relay in 1:42.35.

Overall the Panthers finished second as a team with 315 points, behind Cody with 375 but well ahead of Worland with 142.

Making the short trip on Saturday the Panthers competed in a pentathlon, swimming in five events at either a shorter junior varsity length or the full lengths with an opportunity to qualify in every event.

Carpenter was the highest placing Panther in every event, reaching qualifying marks in all five with his highest placements being second in the 100 free (53.48) and third in the 100 fly (58.56).

“This was actually Hugh’s first pentathlon in all four years that he’s spent with us,” Warren said. “Normally, he’d been gone and didn’t have enough practices, he was very excited to get all of those out of the way right away.”

He and Fuller were the only two Panthers to qualify in all five of the events (50 free, 100 free, 100 back, 100 breast and 100 fly) over the two days in Powell and Cody.

Lawrence again hit the qualifying mark in diving, improving his score from the previous day to 172.4 points to again take third.

“We were just super excited to have the qualifying score the first week. He tried so hard last year to get that qualifying score, and got it right at the very end of the season,” Warren said. “For him to kick off the year, getting that qualifying score, even though it was barely the first day, was awesome. I had mentioned that he was picking up right where he left off last year, and things were looking promising for him. Then to see that higher score come out on Saturday was even more exciting and encouraging for him.”

Powell saw some new competition in Cody, including a conference foe in Buffalo as well as 4A competition in Riverton.

“It seems like we’ll see Cody and Worland quite a bit. We are all pretty evenly numbered,” Warren said. “Seeing Buffalo on Saturday was great. They are a bigger team and they are going to be strong this year … Riverton is looking pretty good too with what they’ve got. It’s just nice to see as many of them as we can out the gate.”

No team scores were kept at the Cody Pentathlon.

Powell takes part in an invitational in Riverton on Friday and Saturday.

Warren is hopeful the Panthers will see some tough competition in Riverton, potentially seeing the 29-time defending state champions in Lander.

“It’s important for them to see that competition early on, it also encourages them and pushes them. So hopefully we’ll get to see them more than once or twice this year,” Warren said. “It’ll help them to just get a better idea of what they really want to focus on … We’re just looking forward to just continuing to improve and to continue to watch those times come down.”

That invitational will be the final event for the Panthers before winter break, not returning to the pool until a tri in Worland on Jan. 2.