MARYSVILLE — Marysville-Pilchuck and Marysville Getchell swim teams had swimmers make the State Meet during the 3A District Finals at M-PHS on Feb. 15.

Out of the 10 teams that competed, MG placed fifth and M-P placed ninth overall.

“Overall, our athletes qualify for great progress over the course of the season,” MG and M-P head coach Meredith Jenks said. “We started the season with a lot of brand new guys who hadn’t swum before, and we ended the season with the majority of both teams participating in the District Championships.”

The day before the District Finals, M-P had seven swimmers who qualified during the preliminaries and MG had 11. “On Feb. 14 at preliminaries, we had 26 of the best times out of 30 swims,” she said. “The top 18 from prelims then moved on to Saturday’s finals, where we had 19 more best times out of 25 swims.”

The top four swimmers from MG during the finals were freshman Nathaniel Ludwig, freshman John Snider, senior Taylor Dalton and sophomore Connor Demarco.

“Our swimmers are focusing on their freestyle, specifically on the turns and finishes, in order to put together a great relay,” Jenks said. “Connor is using the same focus points to help his 100 freestyle. We are focusing on making it to Saturday’s State Meet.”

Ludwig, Snider, Dalton and Demarco took third in the 200 Freestyle Relay, and fifth in the 200 Medley Relay.

“Our MG 200 Freestyle relay qualified for state and so did Connor in the 100 Freestyle,” Jenks said.

MG had highlights in the dives as well. Sophomore Luis Pineda took third, sophomore Dukleth took fourth and junior Matthias McFarlane took sixth. “Luis and Tyler qualified for State,” Jenks said. “Our divers are working to improve their dives in order to make it through the first round of preliminaries.”

With how well the both schools have performed in the District Finals, Jenks is more then pleased with the swimmers’ overall progress.

On top of the progress achieved by the young swimmers, Jenks said the team cohesion between the two high schools throughout the season has been phenomenal.

“They work hard together and play hard together. M-P supports MG, and MG supports M-P,” Jenks said. “The level of encouragement these athletes give each other, across schools, across grade-levels and across ability level, is outstanding.”

The swimmers who qualified moved onto the State Meet at King County Aquatics Center in Federal Way, which began on Feb. 21 and continued on Feb. 22.