Owatonna Diver, Swimmer Advance to State Meet
Owatonna's two competitors in this week's Minnesota State High School League swimming and diving meet have greatly differing goals. Senior Ali An will dive at state for the third straight year. She finished tenth last year and is hoping to make the podium this time, which would be a top-eight finish. Eighth-grade swimmer Logan Norrid, on the other hand, is just hoping to not finish last in her event.
Norrid set the school record in the 100 butterfly at the section meet at 58.97 seconds, but still has the 19th fastest seed time of the twenty swimmers entered. In her second year on the varsity, Norrid spoke with coach Isaiah Fuller early in the season about setting a goal of qualifying for state.
Norrid says she knew she had won the section title in her race when the parent cheering section went wild. Swimming prelims are Thursday at 6 pm at the University of Minnesota Aquatic Center. The top 16 in the 100 butterfly will advance to Friday's finals.
An says her first day at sections was not that good, but she came back with a strong performance in her final three dives. She says its important to have a new mindset for each dive and feels good about her order of dives for this week.
Fuller says a top five finish is possible for An. Wednesday's preliminaries will have two sets of cuts with the top 16 moving on to Friday.