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GILLETTE - With only a few events left during the Wyoming 3A Girls Swimming State Meet the Worland Lady Warriors swim team needed a late push and tremendous efforts to claim their third-place finish Saturday afternoon.

"I felt confident we would take third. I didn't think Riverton would have enough to stay ahead of us even though they were leading us most of the time," said WHS girls swimming coach Mike Blissett.

Going into the final event of the day the 400-yard freestyle, Worland trailed Riverton High School by 13 points but while RHS was swimming in the consolation heat, the Lady Warriors were in the finals heat and a contender to win.

"There's a huge difference in points between first and second place and the places in the consolation. And that's what allowed us to overcome them," Blissett said.

With Lander having a substantial lead on Saturday, Worland was within reach of a second-place finish and the team focused their efforts on that. "Saturday we knew we were down to Sublette County and we had a chance at beating them," Blissett said. "A lot of things needed to go our way but there was room to makeup enough points to barely overtake them. In the end we were able to make up some of those points but just not all of them. So the third-place finish is what we wound up with.

"The third-place finish wasn't anything to hanging our heads at. Keeping up with the competition of those teams and to be very competitive all meet long, I was nothing but proud for the team and girls, they did an excellent job," said Blissett.

Sophomore Ellyse Russell repeated as the 50-yard freestyle champion and also set a new school record of 24.78, breaking the old record of 24.80. Russell took second 100-yard freestyle with a time of 53.92, also a school record, breaking the record of 54.50.

Joining Russell in rewriting the history books, was sophomore Juli Warren who broke the school record in the 200-yard individual medley with a time of 2:18.72, the old record was 2:23.29. Then broke her own record in the 100-yard breaststroke with a time of 1:12.27. Warren also took home the sportsmanship award for the 3A state meet after taking the same award during the 3A East conference meet last week.

"She won't win every sportsmanship award but she is a fantastic team player and it shows," said coach Blissett when asked if Warren would win every sportsmanship award. "People who are looking for that will always see her in that light because she's that type of athlete. She won't necessary always win but she's always going to be on someone's radar because she's a great competitor and great personality."

Another standout on the day for the Lady Warriors was sophomore Kaci Bentley. Swimming in the 500-yard freestyle, Bentley methodically worked herself up the position ladder. During the final 100-yard Bentley was neck and neck with Sublette's Paige Wright for third place. Using the final 25 yards Bentley kicked it into another gear touching the wall .66 of a second sooner than Wright, earning her third place. After receiving her medal Bentley had less than five minutes to prepare to lead off the 200-yard freestyle relay for her team.

Bentley's feat was one of many that impressed coach Blissett throughout the state meet, "She had three minutes of rest between that race and the next one. It's tough to do," said Blissett. "It's hard to be able to turn around and do something like that, especially after she poured so much into that first race. You could tell when she got out of the water she was just exhausted. It's tough and normally you wouldn't do that but Kaci handled it pretty well."

He added, "The meet in general, Kaci's time drops were incredible, she dropped a total of 27 seconds in the 500-yard freestyle. Which is incredible and for her to take third place with all that time drop was just amazing. I can imagine what it was like for the other coaches and being like 'where did this girl come from.' That was exciting and it was fun to watch her," Blissett said.

"Overall, setting those records and the third-place finish were the highlights for me. When you look at Lander and Sublette County both those teams have twice the numbers of us and for us to compete with Sublette and almost beat them is fantastic and couldn't ask for more," said coach Blissett.

Full results from the Wyoming 3A girls swimming state meet are as follows.

Team Rankings

1, Lander Valley, 321.

2, Sublette County, 177.

3, Worland, 167.

4, Riverton, 160.

5, Douglas, 121.

Individual Results

200yd Medley Relay

Final B

7, Worland (Felicia Aguilar, Megan Molitor, Hannah McEndree, Kaci Bentley), 2:05.45.

200yd Freestyle 

Final A

4, Kristen Collingwood, 2:11.31.

5, Kaci Bentley, 2:11.41.

200yd Individual Medley

Final A

3, Juli Warren, 2:19.61.

50yd Freestyle

Final A

1, Ellyse Russell, 24.78.

Diving 1m

9, Kyra Kilnghagen, 267.35.

100yd Butterfly

Final A

4, Kristen Collingwood, 1:06.93.

100yd Freestyle

Final A

2, Ellyse Russell, 53.92.

500yd Freestyle

Final A

3, Kaci Bentley, 5:57.67.

200yd Freestyle Relay

Final A

3, Worland (Kaci Bentley, Kristen Collingwood, Juli Warren, Ellyse Russell), 1:45.03.

100yd Breaststroke

Final A

3, Juli Warren, 1:12.27.

Final B

11, Megan Molitor, 1:19.06.

400yd Freestyle Relay

Final A

2, Worland (Hannah McEndree, Kristen Collingwood, Juli Warren, Ellyse Russell), 3:50.07.