Nathan Beitler/MDN Minot High senior Sophia VonBokern will be one of just 12 Majettes competing in the state meet at the Hulbert Aquatic Center in West Fargo beginning on Friday, Nov. 14. VonBokern is set to swim in both the 200 individual medley and the 100 freestyle.

They may not necessarily have the strength in numbers that they have had in the past, but the Minot High girls swimming and diving team has plenty of talent and fight in the number of athletes that they are bringing to the state meet this year.

The Majettes bring just 12 swimmings and divers to the final meet of the season, the lowest number in the 11 years Emily Jensen has coached the team. Between graduating 10 seniors last year and this being the first full year of the split with Minot North, the state meet will have a bit of a different look and feel for the Majettes.

That doesn’t mean Minot High doesn’t expect to compete, because they do. The Majettes are coming off a third-place finish at WDA and are looking for similar success at the state meet, which begins on Friday, Nov. 14, at the Hulbert Aquatic Center in West Fargo with diving preliminaries scheduled for 12:30 p.m. and swimming prelims set to begin at 3:15 p.m. The Top 16 finishers in prelims advance to Saturday’s event, which starts at 10:45 a.m. with diving and concludes with the swimming events starting at 1:15 p.m.

“We only have 12 athletes coming with us, but I think we’re fierce and we’re mighty and to only be bringing 12 athletes and to be in contention in the top five or potentially top three is remarkable for how far we’ve come this season and what we thought we could be,” Jensen said. “We lost 10 seniors last year and the team split. Our team was super small this year and it’s a testament to their work ethic and the coaching staff we have at Minot High. It’s pretty cool to be where we are right now with this fierce 12 that we’re taking.”

Among the 12 on the roster list are five members of the all-WDA team in Sam VonBokern, Gracyn Bergan, Kirby Quam, Emily Dunstan and Maggie Fricke. VonBokern and Bergan won WDA titles last weekend and VonBokern is a previous state champion, winning the 500-yard freestyle as a freshman. She defended her WDA titles in the 200 freestyle and the 100 butterfly. VonBokern is a five-time all-WDA and three-time all-state selection. VonBokern finished second in the butterfly and third in the 200 freestyle at state last year. Fargo Shanley’s Arianna Hoff – a senior this season – is the defending champion in the 200 freestyle and Williston’s Dru Zander – also a senior – is the defending champion in the butterfly.

Bergan also enters the state meet as a WDA title-holder – her first. The junior diver bested friendly rival Ellie DeForest of Bismarck High on her final dive to claim her first title. Bergan won the 1-meter diving event by 0.15 points.

“It was super nerve-racking because we both are good divers,” Bergan said. “Every dive would be super close. It was just really nerve-racking. It just shows how much I’ve worked and how much effort I put into diving and practice.”

Bergan has been diving since she was a freshman, but likens the sport to gymnastics, a sport she’s competed in since she was 4 years old. It hasn’t taken her long to vault to the top of the standings in a short period of time. She placed second at state as a sophomore behind teammate Haley Conklin, who set a new state record last year with a score of 513.95. The previous best was Fargo Davies’ Madison Hischer in 2020 with a score of 479.95. Conklin has since graduated, making Bergan the top returner in the field. DeForest will be her primary competition from the West, while Grand Forks Red River’s Branwen Loeffler and Grand Forks Central’s Sydnee Sandberg will challenge from the East. Sandberg won the diving event in the EDC Championship meet last weekend with a score of 385.85. Bergan’s winning dive score was 428.00.

“Gracyn had a really great WDA,” Jensen said. “She probably dove the best we’ve ever seen her dive in her career. Her competition is a friendly rivalry with Ellie, who she beat literally in the last dive. It’s going to be a battle at state too and Sam’s going to have some tough competition coming in from the East.”

There is not much familiarity with the teams from the East, as the two conferences only crossed over at one meet this season, which came during the West Fargo Invite on Oct. 4. The only other time the Majettes saw an East opponent close up was a home dual with West Fargo on Oct. 24.

As a result, the state meet becomes a lot of scoreboard watching to see where each team stands among the rest of the field.

“There’s a lot of watching other teams and how their kids are swimming,” Jensen said. “It’s hard not to see when kids are swimming really well and they are all coming from the same team. We want to do well, obviously. We also want everyone else to do well. We want to do well when other teams are at their best. We don’t want to do well in spite of some other team not performing well. You’re always watching other teams and checking to see how they are doing and what their successes look like.”

The Majettes won’t have the depth it normally has to score a lot of points over all of the 12 events, but there are certain events where they feel like they have opportunities to make a lot of headway. Jensen said she felt confident about her lineup in the 200 freestyle with VonBokern, Quam, Fricke and Ella Johnson, who all placed in the top 10 in the event at WDA. The 200 freestyle is the second event of the meet and first of the individual events. VonBokern will also be competing in the 100 butterfly and Quam, Fricke and Johnson will be competing in the 500 freestyle for their second individual event. Hailee Valdez is scheduled to swim the 200 individual medley and the 100 freestyle, while Dunstan will swim the 50 freestyle and 100 freestyle.

The Majettes will rely on its upperclassmen to score the bulk of its points at the state meet with VonBokern, Bergan, Quam, Fricke, Dunstan and Valdez, but Jensen is also hoping to see others that have just missed on making it out of the preliminary round to crack the top 16 and advance to swim on Saturday in the finals. Johnson, Madisyn Racine, Sophia VonBokern, Katy Andersen, Kaceee Makeef and Greer Schaeffer round out the 12 athletes representing the Majettes at state.

In the leadup to the meet, Jensen said this week’s practice will focus mainly on fine-turning the little details that could be the difference between a 17th-place finish and a 16th-place finish, like streamlines up the wall and breath control, while also working on relay exchanges to avoid a potential disqualification like the one that happened to Minot High’s 200 medley relay to begin the WDA meet.

Bismarck Century is the defending state champion and has won nine of the last 10 titles dating back to 2015. Only West Fargo Sheyenne – the reigning EDC champions – has one during that span, claiming the title in 2022. Minot High has been the runners-up each of the last three seasons. The Majettes’ last state title came in 2014.

“We’re pretty excited,” Bergan said. “We’re all a little nervous because it is a little smaller team, but we’re all excited and hopeful to take at least second place or first place.”

Minot High would happily take its 25th state title at the end of the weekend, but with its smaller roster, the Majettes haven’t taken for granted what they’ve accomplished already this year.

“When you put almost 30 girls in a pool area and make them spend three hours a day together for 13 weeks, there’s bound to be things and this year there just wasn’t,” Jensen said. “It was great to see them find themselves, find their confidence and exceed their expectations for where they need to be or where they thought they could be.”