Boys swimming season ends on positive note

Boys swimming season ends on positive note

June 2, 2001

Congratulations on a season well done
DANIEL PULS (left) is congratulated by Montezuma-Cortez High School swimming coach Mark Knox for receiving "Swimmer of the Year" honors for the Western Slope. Puls qualified for the Boys 4A Swimming and Diving Championships after winning the 100-yard breast stroke event at Regionals. Puls placed 18th at State out of 30 swimmers. Puls was gratuated from MCHS last week.

STAFF REPORT

The 2001 prep boys swimming season ended on a positive note for the Montezuma-Cortez High School team.

Senior Daniel Puls capped his career by swimming at the recently-held 4A Colorado Swimming Championships in Fort Collins. He finished 18th overall out of 30 swimmers in the 100-yard breast stroke. Puls, ranked 12th going to State, was clocked in 1 minute, 06.22 seconds in the preliminaries. His time was good but not good enough to finish among the top 16 for the finals.

Puls swam in two individual events in the finals at the Western Slope Swimming and Diving Championships in Grand Junction (Regionals) the previous week. He placed 10th in the 50 free and won the 100 breast. His time for the 100 breast in that meet was 1:05.78 with splits of 30.15 and 35.63. His time in the 50 free was 25.29.

"The boys performed superbly," MCHS head coach Mark Knox said following regionals. "All of them got a personal best time in the meet. All swimmers qualified for the finals, eight involved relays. This will provide invaluable experience for our team next season (Puls was the only senior)."

The Panthers placed seventh at the regional meet with 55 points. Montrose won with 417, Durango finished second with 361.The District 51 Griffins (combination of Grand Junction area schools) took third in the team race. Montrose won the meet in part to senior Eric Wiesner, who finished first in every event he entered — the 50 and 100 free, and the 200 and 400 free relays.

In the 200 medley relay, MCHS finished seventh with a time of 2:05.24. Members of that team were Ryan Horne, Scott Fowler, Mark Studevant, and Puls.

Cortez placed 11th in the 200 free relay in 2:12.02. On that squad were Richard Berger, Jasper Showers, David Conrads and G. Andrews.

The 400 free relay team finished in eight with a time of 4:28.78. They were Berger, Sturdevant, Fowler and Puls.

Also on the swim team this past spring was Damon Burris, who also went with the team to Regoinals. Jessica Millican was the manager.