Boys Swimming: Rest pays off in Missota title

The Tigers add a Missota Conference championship to their Section 1AA True Team title

After Wednesday's  practice, Farmington coach Ryan Hamen had his team taper its workouts to concentrate on fine tuning its individual strokes in preparation for Saturday's Missota Conference Championships at Shakopee.

The strategy paid big dividends as the rested Tigers edged Chaska/Chanhassen 537-529 for their second conference crown in three years.

Red Wing finished a distant third with 357.5 points, followed by Shakopee with 259.5 and Northfield 176.

"What a fantastic meet," Hamen said. "We did it with a little rest and a lot of focus.  I can't wait to see what we will do when they have 10 days of a true taper to ready us for sections."

Hamen said looking at the seed times he and his staff figured Chaska/Chanhassen was the team to beat, so the pre-meet focus revolved around who had to step up in what events in order to change the outcome.

The Tigers obviously got the message.

Christopher Kirchmann 3 1sts, 2nd at conference meet (photo by Jim Lindquist)

Christopher Kirchmann had a brilliant day for the Tigers, winning the 100 freestyle and anchoring the first place 200 freestyle and 400 freestyle relays.  Kirchmann also took second in the 50 freestyle.

Dahlton Bell, Evan Carufel and Cristian Bell joined Kirchmann for the 200 free relay while Dahlton Bell, Cameron Molnar and Christian Bell swam the first three legs of the 400 relay.

The Tigers entered the 400 free relay, the final event of the day, with a razor-thin two-point lead over Chaska/Chanhassen but their school record time of 3:19.67 brought home the championship hardware.

The Tigers made it a clean sweep of the relays as Oliver Chow, Spencer Kabran, Brandon Dion and Carufel opened the day with a victory in the 200 medley event.

"In my five years as head coach I have never had three solid relays to bring to a meet," Hamen said.

Three other Farmington entrants produced second place points: Carufel, one-meter diving; Chow,  100 butterfly and Eric Schimmel, 200 individual medley.

Chow ranked third in the 100 backstroke as did Dion in the 100 butterfly and Dahlton Bell in the 100 freestyle.

Aaron Cochnauer chipped in with a pair of fourth place efforts in the 200 medley and 100 fly and Molnar took fourth in the 200 freestyle. Other Tiger fourth place finishers included Jonathan Bovee, diving; Dahlton Bell, 100 backstroke and Nick Stephan, 100 breaststroke.

Christian Bell scored a pair of fifth place finishes in the 50 and 100 free races and Molnar placed fifth in the 100 backstroke.

Other Top 10 Farmington finishes:
200 freestyle: 8, D. Bell; 9. Austin Kueck
200 individual medley: 9. Stephan
50 freestyle: 6. Carufel
100 butterfly: 10. Bradley Dow
500 freestyle: 6. Kueck; 9. Daniel Berg; 10. Schimmel
100 backstroke: 8. Garrett Haugen
100 breaststroke: 6. Kabran; 7. Robin DeCastro; 8. Ben Cohoon