WEST FARGO — West Fargo competed with 12 athletes in the North Dakota State Men's Swimming and Diving Championships and ended the two-day event with the program's first team championship in more than a dozen years.
“We were a small team this season, but we had big goals,” West Fargo co-head coach Lisa Montplaisir said. The entire team roster included a total of 22 swimmers.
West Fargo freshman Isaiah Ayers and sophomore Brody Engelstad won two individual events Saturday at the Hulbert Aquatic Center and were part of the victory relay to lead the Packers to the 2012 This was the first time since then that he led the team to first place in the team competition. Fargo also won the state team title in 2009.
“This is a special group of boys,” Monplaisir said. “We were a young team, we were a small team. We went into the state tournament with 12 guys, nine of whom earned points in the finals, so everyone did their part to make this happen. … At the end of the day, this is a pretty valuable victory.”
David Samson/The Forum
West Fargo finished with 275 points. Grand Forks (230), Bismarck (225), Bismarck Century (204.5) and Fargo North (184) rounded out the top five.
“That was amazing. Great teamwork from the whole team,” Engelstad said. It was really fun to be there. I thought we had a chance. I knew we had to fight extremely hard to achieve that, and the whole team did a really good job. ”
North senior Haydn Vain also had a great weekend, winning two individual events while setting state and pool records.
Ayers won the 200-yard freestyle in 1 minute, 41.22 seconds, setting a state record, breaking the previous record of 1 minute, 41.65 seconds set by Minot's Grant Schaefer in 2022. Ayers also set a pool record by winning the 100 butterfly in 50.98 seconds.
Engelstad won the 50 freestyle in 20.66 seconds and the 100 freestyle in 45.49 seconds. He set state records in both of Friday's qualifying races. His 20.41 score in the 50 free surpassed Minot's Matthew Lowe's 20.51 score in 2003. Engelstad's score of 44.66 in the preliminaries surpassed the 44.86 scored by Fargo South's Eric Anderson in 2021.
Engelstad said, “It was amazing. It was really fun to be able to break some state records. Being able to be in our home pool and do all the great things that our team accomplished. It’s really amazing.”
Ayers led West Fargo's 400 freestyle relay with Engelstad swimming the anchor leg. Along with Logan Engelstad and Noah Ayers, the Packers won in 3:10.33. Fargo North's team of Ty Bootwell, Finn Kielty, Ben Jorgenson and Vain took second place with a time of 3:12.21.
Both West Fargo and North schools participated in an epic 200-meter medley relay. The top three teams all beat the state record of 1:36.11, set by Minot in 2023.
Bismarck won in 1:35.26, setting a new state standard. West Fargo's team of Isaac Erhardt, Noah Ayers, Isaiah Ayers and Brody Engelstad took second place with a time of 1:35.27. The North team of Ben Jorgensen, Vane, Liam Shriver and Bootwell took third place with a time of 1:36.02.
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Vain won the 200-meter individual medley, setting a state record with a time of 1:52.86. Bismarck His Century's Lauren Cesar set the previous record of his 1:53.36 in 2015. Vane also won the 100-meter breaststroke in a time of 56.71 seconds, and in the preliminaries she set a pool record for that event with a time of 56.03 seconds.
Bismarck junior Blake Nelson won the 100 backstroke in 51.22 seconds. Nelson set a state record in qualifying with a score of 51.02, surpassing Minot's Gerald Brown's score of 51.16 in 2017.
“The atmosphere was great,” Engelstad said. “Everyone was rooting for each other. We were rooting for other teams at events just to see their records go up.”
Monplaisir said the possibility of winning a state title has been on the team's radar since the beginning of this season.
“Of course it was unexpected, but it's been on the team's list of goals since the beginning of the season,” Montplaisir said.
David Samson/The Forum
First army
Avery Berg, Grand Forks. Ty Bootwell, north Fargo. Camden Ekblad Lumby, Williston. Brody Engelstad, West Fargo; Drew Heckaman, Southern Fargo; Aiden Johnson, Grand Forks; Ben Jorgensen, Fargo North; Tolga Kilic, Dickinson. Carter Larson, Minot. Ben Nasset, Bismarck Legacy. Blake Nelson, Bismarck. Ty Ross, Minot. Braxton Steele, Bismarck Legacy. Bryce Vatondal, Bismarck. Haydn Vain, Fargo North. Garrett Wick, Bismarck.
second team
Andrew Edlund, Bismarck Century. Bodie Haglund, Jamestown. Zach Hanson, Jamestown; Odin McAllister, West Fargo. Finn Moser, Jamestown. Ben Schaff, Bismarck Century. Elliot Schulseth, South Fargo.
Peterson covers college athletics for The Forum, including Concordia University and Minnesota State Moorhead. He also covers the Fargo, Moorhead and Red Hawks independent baseball teams and helps cover North Dakota State football. Peterson has been working at the newspaper since 1996.
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