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Magi swimming and diving overpower, outnumber Legacy in season-opening dual

Ashton Gerard/MDN Minot High School junior Layton King completes a dive during the Magicians' first meet of the season against Bismarck Legacy at Magic City Campus Thursday.

Just by shear numbers, the Minot High School Magicians defeated Bismarck Legacy in their home and season opening meet Thursday by a score of 146-37. The Magi saw some improvements in the lanes and on the boards with some swimmers branching into events they’ve never swam before.

This week, the team started morning practices and weight lifting so it was encouraging to see the team being able to either stay at the same time or drop time since the beginning of practices.

“With the additional training, it’s kind of difficult to see immediate improvements in times,” Magi head coach Jake Solper said. “Even understanding their training intensity has been increased, they were still able to kind of match up with the times they were able to post earlier in the season when training was a little less intense and they had a little bit more energy in the tank.”

Even with the intensity spike, some Magicians were able to muscle through for improved times.

As a junior, Griffin Schaeffer swam the 200-yard freestyle for the first time in his high school career and finished third overall with a time of 2:02.85, a state qualifying time, behind fellow Magi William Walker-Rozo (1:54.80) and Jack Wolsky (1:58.73).

“(That) kind of surprised me because (Griffin is) a very versatile swimmer, but most of the time we use him in the events like the 200 IM, 200 fly and 100 breaststroke,” Solper said. “When he had mentioned that today was his first time I was curious to see how he’d do and he did a great job.”

Joining Griffin in the 100-yard breaststroke was his younger brother, freshman Grant Schaeffer.

“We got to watch the Schaeffer brothers, Griffin and Grant, go head to head in the 100 breaststroke,” Solper said. “Both of them improved their breaststroke time by a little over a second between the intrasquad and today’s dual.”

Griffin ended up with the top time of 1:05.35 while Grant took fourth with a 1:10.57, both hitting state qualifying times in the first meet of the season. Also qualifying in breaststroke for the Magi was sophomore Josh Boen, who took second with a 1:08.35.

Overall in their first meet of the season, 16 Magicians swam state qualifying times, five of which were freshman or eighth-graders new to the team.

“Anytime we can get qualifying times this early in the season we’re pretty happy,” Solper said.

Swimmers winning both of their events Thursday included Walker-Rozo (200 freestyle and 500 freestyle) and sophomore Dominic Yoder (200 individual medley and 100 backstroke).

“Both guys put together some great performances and sometimes in these dual meets things happen pretty quickly and to be able to compete at that high level for four events,” Solper said. “To be able to take first in both of their individuals is a pretty outstanding accomplishment.”

It was all Magicians on the boards Thursday, as Legacy didn’t bring any divers to the dual. Juniors Layton King and Reece Pederson took first and second followed by sophomore Mason Robertson in third.

Even though they were competing with themselves, Solper said it was a great opportunity for the divers to perform in front of judges and spectators.

“There’s always a different feel to a meet setting verses a practice setting and all six of our divers did a great job handling the pressure of the first meet,” Solper said.

Up next, the Magicians will travel to Bismarck Saturday where they will see Bismarck Century, Bismarck High, Dickinson, Legacy, Mandan and Williston. Solper will be looking to the veteran swimmers as they try to swim different events and diversify their talents.

“We kind of want to get a baseline from these first few weeks to see where our guys are at, figure out where some of the strengths may lie in this year’s team and where we may have some weaknesses where we may need to focus on certain distances to make sure we’ve got athletes that are ready to fill any voids we may currently have,” Solper said.

The Bismarck Invite will begin at 11 a.m. at Bismarck State College Aquatic and Wellness Center Saturday.

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