LANDER – The 2021 girls' swim season opened with back-to-back action in Lander on Aug. 27-28.

On Friday, the Sublette County combined swim team competed against six teams in the Lander Relays. Sublette County took fifth place overall with 173 points.

Back in the pool Saturday, the team entered the Bruce Gresly Pentathlon hosted by Lander. Athletes competed in five events – the 100-yard butterfly, 100-yard backstroke, 50-yard freestyle, 100-yard breaststroke and 100-yard freestyle. Times from each event were combined to determine an athletes' overall place.

Junior Lily Joseph dominated diving over the weekend. Joseph qualified for State with a first-place finish in the 6-dive event on Friday, scoring 153.55 points. On Saturday, Joseph placed third in the 6-dive category, tallying 143.35 points.

Junior Rhonda Auradou took second place in the 11-dive event on Saturday with 234.45 points.

Joseph and freshman Emma York won the Sportsmanship Award on Friday and Saturday respectively.

Co-head coaches Kursty Day and Amber Seemann said the team is off to a great start.

“We are a young team, and two meets back to back can be hard,” said Day. “With help from the upperclassmen, we were able to keep energy levels high. In return, we had some great efforts shown. We will continue to work hard in practice and look forward to our next meet in Green River.”

“Our goal for this meet was to give our girls time to get to know each other and create cohesiveness,” said Seemann. “We have great leadership who took initiative in developing a great team atmosphere.”

Lander Relays highlights

• 200-yard medley relay: Ceili Fallon, Sierra Hattan, Morgan Grossman and Jacie Friel in fifth place at 2 minutes, 20.91 seconds.
• 400-yard medley relay: Friel, Fallon, Hattan and Mia Buchanan in fourth place at 5:20.88.
• 1-meter diving: Auradou in fourth place with 136.25 points, Rachel Essington in seventh place at 113.60 and Maggie Walker in eighth at 90.25.
• 200-yard butterfly relay: Ayame Conway, Fallon, Grossman and Rayne Wheeler in fourth place at 2:34.52.
• 500-yard freestyle relay: Buchanan, Auradou, Grossman and Wheeler in third place at 6:08.77.
• 200-yard freestyle relay: Buchanan, Essington, Auradou and Walker in seventh place at 2:11.28.
• 400-yard freestyle relay: Grossman, Buchanan, Hattan and Wheeler in fourth place at 4:31.82.

Bruce Gresly Pentathlon

Approximately 100 athletes competed in each race on Saturday with 74 completing all five.

Wheeler took 26th place overall, clocking in with a combined time of 5:46.69. Buchanan came in 47th at 6:14.03, followed by Fallon in 49th at 6:18.12, Addysen Levitt in 61st at 6:44.56, Alexis Thompson in 65th at 6:53.84 and Addison Statham in 69th at 7:11.38.