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Camas, Calwell make a splash at state swimming

Papermakers place second as senior garners top honor

By Erik Gundersen, Columbian Trail Blazers Writer
Published: February 22, 2015, 12:00am

FEDERAL WAY — Saturday was a podium day for the Camas Papermakers at the 4A boys state swimming championships.

The Papermakers finished in second place overall, their best finish in school history in either the girls or boys meet.

A big reason why the Papermakers took home team hardware was because they had the 4A Swimmer of the Meet on their side in senior Kasey Calwell, who is bound for University of California Santa Barbara.

Calwell dominated the field in the 200-yard individual medley, winning by more than a body length and destroying his previous personal best by two seconds with an All-American consideration time of 1 minute, 51.51 seconds.

Calwell also took home the 100 breaststroke with a personal best time of 56.53 for his second title of the day.

As a member of all of Camas’ relay teams, he was cooling down in an attempt to be ready for the team’s 4×100 relay before he was given the meet’s highest individual honor.

“I actually wasn’t expecting to get it,” Calwell said. “I mean, I knew if I won both of them that would be pretty cool. I wasn’t expecting to get that. Because you join some names of some pretty cool people. I’m speechless really.”

But of course, in a second-place team finish, every Camas swimmer that was in the pool played a part in their historic day.

Joining Calwell as a state champion was fellow senior Lucas Ulmer, who took down the field in the 100 butterfly with a time of 51.10.

“I’ve never expected to come out here and win it,” Ulmer said. “It’s always been a dream. Shoot for the stars. The best thing was when I go out there and I touch and I go ‘man, that didn’t feel like I just won.’ Then I turn around and see a 1 on the board and I thought ‘this is unbelievable.’ “

Another senior, John Utas, was keeled over on his side after his leg of the 4×100 relay. Utas isn’t able to recover as quickly as most because of a procedure to remove a Chiari malformation.

He’s been an inspiration for the team and their last race was no different.

“I’ve seen John do that so much,” Calwell said. “He puts so much heart and soul into his races. He’s not the fastest one out there but he’ll never be the slowest. He’s such an inspiration coming into practice each day.”

The Papermakers sat in sixth before Calwell hit the water and finished the final relay in fourth place.

Newport of Bellevue won the 4A team title with 199 points, and Camas was second with Camas 185.

After the meet, it was hard to see the emotion from both Ulmer and Calwell. And Calwell said behind closed doors the emotion flowed even more, especially for the seniors.

“I said top-3 and truly I didn’t know if I believed it in my own heart,” Calwell said. “But we actually did it. It’s incredible. It’s an incredible way to end. It’s something I’ll be talking about forever. I’m gonna lose it right now.”

Other local 4A results:

• Jake Breuer from Skyview placed fourth with a time of 1:55.51.

• Chris Xue from Mountain View finished in third place with a time of 21.58.

• Camas’ Mark Kim finished fifth in the 500 freestyle with a time of 4:46.04.

3A meet highlights

• Columbia River’s Josh Bottelberghe placing fourth in the 100 breast (59.71) and ninth in the 200 free.

• Columbia River’s Cal Duus was 14th in the 100 fly.

2A meet highlights

• Hockinson’s Dylan Osborne was third both the 50 free (21.53) and 100 fly (51.79).

• Hockinson’s Jonah Rodewald placed fourth in the 200 IM (1:58.17) and 100 breast (1:01.66).

• Hockinson was sixth in 200 medley relay with a time of 1:43.89 and was eighth in the 400 free relay (3:24.23).

• The Hockinson team placed ninth with 113 points.

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Columbian Trail Blazers Writer