Amber Cratsenberg and Rachel Kim proved to be the class of the West Central District Swimming and Diving Championships.
Cratsenberg, a Thomas Jefferson junior, and Kim, a Beamer senior, both won a pair of individual district swimming titles Saturday at the Rogers High School pool. The twosome now hopes to continue their dominance at the Class 4A State Girls Swimming Championships Nov. 12-13 at the King County Aquatic Center in Federal Way.
Cratsenberg, the defending state champion in the 50- and 100-yard freestyle, won the same events Saturday at Rogers. Cratsenberg finished first in a stacked 50-free field by out-touching Kentridge’s Emily Mohr, Federal Way’s Kaia Barth and Kentlake’s Taylor Bouffard. The four racers were separated by only one second at the wall. Cratsenberg won in a time of 24.17.
The TJ junior also won a tight 100-free Saturday. Cratsenberg finished in a time of 52.51, followed by Kent-Meridian’s Joanna Wu just .31 seconds behind. Barth finished fourth in 54.42.
Kim, who swam state-qualifying times in all eight individual events during the regular season, finished first in both the 200-yard individual medley (2:09.03) and 100 backstroke (58.16). Kim won the individual medley by nearly four seconds.
But Cratsenberg and Kim weren’t the only Federal Way School District athletes to snare an individual district championship Saturday at Rogers. Jefferson’s Madi Kellar led a very strong contingent of divers at the West Central District Meet.
Kellar won the title with an impressive 355.30 points and was followed by Beamer’s Elizabeth Wiley (328.15), and Jefferson sisters Shelby Church (298.85) and Monica Church (287.55).
Federal Way High School picked up the win in the 200 freestyle relay in a time of 1:41.36. The Eagle team included Barth, Eva Barth, Kayla Ramey and Kenna Ramey.
But it was Thomas Jefferson who had the best team finish during the district meet.
Perennial swimming power Mount Rainier dominated the standings, finishing first with 160.5 points, but the Raiders finished second with 138.
Tying for third were Kentlake and Gig Harbor at 136. Federal Way finished sixth and Beamer was 11th. The top seven placers in each event qualified for the state meet.