JASPER – Bedford North Lawrence earned two top seeds during the preliminary races in the IHSAA boys swimming sectional at Jasper on Thursday night.
The Stars will be favored in the 200-yard freestyle relay and the 100 backstroke. The winner in each event will automatically qualify for the state finals on Feb. 23 at IUPUI in Indianapolis.
BNL’s Garrett Gabhart grabbed the top spot in the backstroke with a time of 55.28 (just .01 seconds ahead of Jasper’s Carson Book). He teamed with Jayden Duke, Oliver Brown and Isaiah Eicle for a time of 1:34.13 to touch first in the 200 free relay.
The Stars will be seeded second in five events for the sectional finals.
“Overall it was a great start,” BNL coach Adam Young said. “Everybody made it back to finals and all but one swim advanced. So we did pretty good on our mission of positioning ourselves for Saturday. We had mostly lifetime bests, and in some cases some really big drops.
“Great job across the board. We will now look to Saturday and see if there is a bit more in the tank. We will need it.”
The consolations and finals in each event will begin at 2 p.m.
