Fernley boys swimming places 4th, girls 6th at regional meet

Robert Perea, The Fernley Reporter

Two relay teams and one individual will represent the Fernley High School swimming team at Saturday’s 3A State Meet in Carson City to cap one of the program’s most successful seasons.

The Vaqueros’ boys team finished fourth in last week’s 3A North Region Meet, while the girls finished sixth, both with a host of competitors.

The leader was Caleb Mortenson, who qualified for State in the boys 100 breaststroke with a time of 1:09.55, and was also a member of both relay teams that qualified.

In the 200 medley relay, Mortenson teamed with Broderick Garrett, Christian Maldonado and Benson Lyman to place third with a time of 1:57.27.

The same group finished fourth in the 200 freestyle relay with a time of 1:45.75 to qualify for State.

As a team, the Fernley boys placed fourth with 178 points, just one point out of third place. Truckee won the meet with 512 points, Lowry finished second with 219 and South Tahoe was third with 179.

The girls team finished sixth with 114 points. Truckee finished first with 453, followed by South Tahoe in second with 273.5 and North Tahoe third with 211.

Aside from his state qualifying events, Mortenson also nearly qualified in a fourth event, placing fifth in the 200 intermediate medley with a time of 2:25.04.

Maldonado placed seventh in the boys 50 freestyle with a time of 25.57, while Lyman came in seventh in the boys 100 butterfly in 1:05.93 and eighth in the boys 100 freestyle in 1:18.69.

Garrett had an eighth place finish in the boys 500 freestyle in 6:30.77, Dustin Derley was eighth in the boys 100 freestyle in 1:18.69 and the boys 400 freestyle relay team of Jesus Diaz Adame, Nathan Glass, Dustin Derley and Michael Nguyen placed fifth in 4:35.56.

For the girls, Auburn Mortenson had the highest individual finish, taking fifth in the 500 freestyle in a time of 6:56.64, and she also came in eighth in the 100 breaststroke in 1:24.84.

Natalia Sobol finished eighth in the girls 50 freestyle with a time of 29.72.

In relays, the girls 200 medley relay team of Natalia Sobol, Allyssa Mathern, Auburn Mortenson and Izabell Palcios placed sixth in 2:28.04, the girls 200 freestyle relay team of Samantha Funk, Lizbeth Rosas Ojeda, Linette Rodriguez Molina, and Madisyn McKinney finished sixth in 2:27.27 and the girls 400 freestyle team of Lilly Mauk, Kylie Still, Nicole Perez, Teagan Summers came in sixth in 5:51.14.