With a strong effort to cap off a season of growth, the Powell Panther swim and dive team finished fifth at the 3A State Championships in Gillette, with Hugh Carpenter joining the Panther Hall of Fame in the 100 butterfly.

Carpenter’s swim came in the ‘A’ finals of the 100 fly, finishing in 55.66 seconds to take fourth overall in the event. He also became the fifth fastest Panther in history, passing Josh Reidhammer, who had finished with a time of 55.7 in 2016.

“That’s what his goal was and he accomplished that,” coach Stephanie Warren said.

Powell also got two ‘A’ finals swims from Will Fuller, who finished fifth in the 50 free with a 22.97 and sixth in the 100 back with a time of 1:00.55.

Taggart Shumway just missed a medal position in diving, finishing seventh with a score of 306.85.

Other competitors making the ‘B’ final were Trystan Preator who took 10th in the 100 fly (1:01.81) and Conner Mayes who took 12th in the 200 IM (2:21.37).

“We were going in knowing that we were going to be focusing on individual times and performances, hoping for those best individual performances that we’ve had for each one of them all season long,” Warren said. “Each one of them had probably their best swim of the season. Even though some of them didn’t quite finish in the places they thought or hoped they would, they still had really great performances.”

The highest placing relay team for the Panthers came in the 400 free, as the team of Carpenter, Preator, Mayes and Fuller finished fourth with a time of 3:33.09.

That placement catapulted the Panthers to their fifth place finish, capping off a strong team finish.

“I think it’s almost exactly how we expected it to happen,” Warren said. “Lyman was a little bit stronger than we anticipated, but we haven’t seen them very much this year so it’s always hard to tell. But the last couple years they have done really well. So it wasn’t shocking that they were up there at all.”

Powell finished just ahead of Newcastle and Kemmerer with 91 points, but was well behind Lyman in fourth with 170, Cody with 189, Buffalo with 254 and Lander with 355 which won its 29th consecutive state title.

The Panthers will say goodbye to three seniors from this year’s program in Shumway, Mayes and Lukas Legler.

“Lukas was one of the hardest workers … Conner and Taggart coming from Lovell, the dedication they had to this team, they encouraged not only some of the kids from Lovell but some of the Powell kids,” Warren said. “They developed those relationships, they all did show good leadership this last year.”

Heading into next year the Panthers will return a majority of their swimmers, including each of their top finishers along with a strong group of freshmen who gained valuable experience their first year.

“Hopefully we’re going to continue growing them,” Warren said. “Hopefully somewhere along the way we’ll get a few more interested swimmers to come in and help us out. That’s what a lot of these teams have is just a little bit more depth, we could use a little bit more depth also.”

3A STATE CHAMPIONSHIP

p denotes preliminary time

Team scores — 1. Lander 355, 2. Buffalo 254, 3. Cody 189, 4. Lyman 170, 5. Powell 91, 6. Newcastle 87, 7. Kemmerer 86, 8. Rawlins 70, 9. Worland 35, 10. Sublette County 22, 11. Douglas 20

200 medley relay — 6. Will Fuller, Conner Mayes, Hugh Carpenter and Taggart Shumway 1:50.73

200 IM — 12. Conner Mayes 2:21.37, 25. Tyler Kruger 2:29.9p

50 free — 5. Will Fuller 22.97, 16. Taggart Shumway 24.62p

1-meter diving (11 dives) — 7. Taggart Shumway 306.85, 17. Dayton Lawrence 99.85p

100 fly — 4. Hugh Carpenter 55.66, 10. Trystan Preator 1:01.81, 13. Tyler Kruger 1:02.29p, 25. Gabe Buchholtz 1:09.7p

100 free — 14. Hugh Carpenter 54.66p, 19. Trystan Preator 1:00.55p

500 free — 18. Conner Mayes 5:45.7p, 21. Sam Williams 6:12.7p

200 free relay — 8. Trystan Preator, Tyler Kruger, Gabe Buchholtz and Taggart Shumway 1:42.37

100 back — 6. Will Fuller 1:00.55, 19. Gabe Buchholtz 1:10.31p

400 free relay — 4. Hugh Carpenter, Trystan Preator, Conner Mayes and Will Fuller 3:33.09