Daniel Puls of the Montezuma-Cortez High School boys swimming team swam the races of his life in the preliminaries and finals of the 100-yard breast stroke at the recently-held Western Slope Swimming Championships in Grand Junction.

Puls set a new school record for the event and took first place. He qualified for Friday’s and Saturday’s, May 19-20, Class 4A State Swimming Championships at the Eldora Pool and Ice Center in Fort Collins.

Puls, a junior, entered the race with a clocking of 1 minute, 09.92 seconds, which he had hit three weeks ago. That was a school record (previous was 1:11). However, in the preliminaries he shattered that time of 1:06.38 which put him in first place for the finals. He bettered that new standard with a 1:04.50 in the finals. That record has been in the MCHS record books for nearly a decade.

"Daniel definitely had a great meet," MCHS head boys coach Mark Knox remarked. "In the finals he came out (from the start) and popped up. He led the race start to finish. He had a two-body length on everyone else at the finish. That was the most intense race I have every seen him swim."

He also swam in the 50 freestyle and finished ninth with a time of 24.26, which was a personal best.

Montrose won the Regional title with 385 points, Grand Junction High 341, Durango 266, Glenwood Springs 281, Moffat County 59, Cortez 46, and Delta 32.

"Overall we had top time swims from everybody. And everybody on our team competed in the finals," Knox said.

In the 200-yard medley relay the Panthers finished in 10th place with a 2:07.34, which was a season best time for Adam Schneider (back stroke), Noah Leonard (breast), Puls (butterfly), and Ryan Gray (freestyle). All of the members recorded best times in each of their splits. Their prelim time was 2:10.29.

The 200 free relay saw Cortez finish eighth overall. The prelim time was a 1:49.14 and finals time was 1:46.30. Everyone — Puls, Gray, Leonard, and Scott Fowler — made personal bests in their respective splits.

The 400 free relay team placed eighth overall. The prelim time was 5:41.40. The finals was a 5:13.97, a drop of a whopping 27 odd seconds. The members were Schneider, The Netherlands exchange student Mark Wiggers, Chance Harrison, and Fowler.

Some individuals swam well in the preliminaries. Gray went 2:21.81, a drop of nine seconds, in the 200 free and a 13th overall finish. In the 200 individual medley, Fowler ended up 15th overall after entering with a 3:27 and finishing with a 3:06. Harrison entered the 50 free at 37.11 and clocked 33.89 for 24th. Fowler swam a 1:14.15 in the 100 free and he improved to a 1:12.52. Leonard entered at 1:03.52 and swam 1:03.11 in the 100 free for 18th. In the 500 free, Gray entered at 7:01.68 and swam a 6:35.54 for a 14th overall finish. Schneider, in the 100 back, entered at 1:26.20 and swam at 1:25.53. Leonard entered the 100 breast at 1:20.53 and finished at 1:19.11. Wiggers, the lone senior on the team, entered 1:36.47 and finished 1:29.00 also in that event.