Justin Martinez/MDN Minot High sophomore Josh Boen comes up for air during the 200 individual medley on Saturday in the finals of the boys swimming and diving state meet at the Bismarck State College Aquatic and Wellness Center.

BISMARCK — The time had come. The entire season boiled down to this moment for the Minot High School swimming and diving Magicians. It was time to leave everything they had in the water.

With more depth than anyone could have wished for, Minot painted the podiums in maroon and gold Saturday, taking home their second straight state championship. The Magi dominated with a team score of 438. Bismarck Century took second (327) followed by Fargo North in third (267) to fill out the podium.

“Our guys worked their tails off all season and they knew that they wanted to put themselves in a position to be competitive for another run at a second title,” said MHS head coach Jake Solper, who was named the Coach of the Year. “In today’s sport of swimming in North Dakota things have gotten more competitive so doing duplicate titles isn’t the easiest thing to do. Century was pretty outstanding at it for five years in a row and so the guys knew that it was possible.”

The team dug in, focused and competed the entire season and the work paid off as the Magi will see yet another banner hung at Magic City Campus, adding to the 26 boys swimming & diving championships in the school’s history.

Though they didn’t have any first-place finishes, Minot was able to place eight athletes onto the All-State Team, marking more than any other team. The five named to the First Team included Steve Novak, Griffin Schaeffer, William Walker-Rozo, Jack Wolsky and Dominic Yoder. Finishing on the Second Team were Peyton Huss, Layton King and Zac Spaulding.

“I think really for our team this year it was the really high quality of our depth,” Solper said. “Just to get eight guys on one team to either the First or Second Team All-State, it shows that we’ve got a lot of really quality athletes and we’ve got some guys that weren’t too far behind those time standards as well…and that’s what did it for us this year.”

According to Solper, the team had 22 appearances in the finals heats and eight appearances in the consolation heats. They made 30 of their 36 individual appearances to the second day of competition. To have 22 of those athletes in the finals heats speaks to the quality of the team.

“It’s credit to the culture our seniors set for the team this year,” Solper added.

Swimming

Senior swimmer Keegan Summers used some of his senior season emotion to spring ahead in the 500-yard freestyle, dropping five seconds from the preliminaries and move up to 12th place with a time of 5:09.92.

“After he’d competed the 200 (freestyle), the 500 and then the 200 again, that was really remarkable for him to cut more time to move up two spots in the 500 free,” Solper said.

Also joining the time-cutting trend were juniors William Walker-Rozo and Jack Wolsky. The pair finished second and third respectively in the 200 individual medley. Walker-Rozo dropped nearly three seconds for a time of 1:59.15 which was a First Team time while Wolsky dropped 0.32 of a second for a time of 2:01.93, earning a Second Team time.

In the same event, Josh Boen held steady from prelims to finish in sixth with a time of 2:03.64 while Dominic Yoder took seventh with a 2:03.83.

“In our IM, to have four guys make it to the finals and put together another great performance the second day was really fun to watch,” Solper said.

Senior Steve Novak earned a First Team time in the 50 freestyle, taking fifth with a time of 22.16. Junior Zac Spaulding finished eighth in the event with a 22.58.

Walker-Rozo and senior Peyton Huss took third and fourth in the 100 Butterfly. Huss earned a Second Team All-State time of 54.59, following Walker-Rozo’s 54.19.

Spaulding took fourth in the 100 freestyle followed by Steve Novak in fifth with times of 49.52 and 49.63.

Yoder took third in backstroke for the Magi with a time of 55.73. Freshman Kalen Hill finished eighth with a time of 58.47. Peyton Bartsch took first in the consolation heat, finishing ninth overall, with a 58.08.

In the final individual event of the season, Minot’s Wolsky and Griffin Schaeffer took fourth and fifth in the 100 breaststroke, each cutting time from preliminaries and making times for First Team All-State.

Diving

In the diving well, all four Minot divers had advanced to the finals. After the semifinals, Layton King led the Magi in third with a score of 279.10 followed by Mason Robertson (240.45) in eighth, Harrison Shanklin (233.65) in 10th and Reece Pederson (233.20) in 11th.

On the first dive of the finals, Robertson had landed his dive a little closer than anticipated and made contact with the board. Out of concern for his safety, Robertson was kept off the board for his final two dives and ended the day without a score.

“That’s not a fun decision to make, especially with a diver like Mason who has been so motivated and so dedicated this season to learning new dives with very high degrees of difficulty,” Solper said. “But we also recognize that Mason is a sophomore and he has two more years of diving ahead of him at the high school level…We can hope for some pretty big things from him next year.”

The rest of the divers pushed forward, scoring major points to help propel Minot to victory. King remained in third and finished with a score of 384.50 which earned him a place on the Second Team All-State. Pederson finished eighth with a 339.10 followed by Shanklin in 12th with a 313.45.

“We knew coming into the season that our divers were going to be a strong point for us, we didn’t know exactly how strong they were going to be but they definitely showed us what they were capable of,” Solper said. “That’s something we can hang our hats on is how well the divers performed.”