Finley leads PF to swim crown

MOSCOW – Sarah Finley broke two Idaho high school records and captured four firsts to lead Post Falls to its second straight Idaho State High School swimming championship and its fourth title in six years.

Moscow repeated as the boys champion. Both meets were held at the University of Idaho.

Finley, a senior, won the 100-yard butterfly in a state-record time of 58.12 seconds, eclipsing the old time of 58.45 set in 1995 and easily beating the second-place finisher by 5 seconds. In the 500 freestyle, Finley crushed the 11-year-old record with a time of 5:10.39. The old mark, 5:14.11, was set in 1993.

The Post Falls girls won the team title with 259 points, followed by Eagle with 218 and Lake City with 199. Moscow was fifth with 164 and Sandpoint and Coeur d’Alene tied for seventh with 107. The Moscow boys won with 271 points. Lake City was fourth with 191 and Sandpoint finished sixth with 167.

Finley was part of the winning 200 medley relay with Annette Seher, Christine Mabile and Mamie Lash. She was also part of the winning 400 free relay with Seher, Lash and Jessi Johnson.

Other area girls winners included Caroline Campbell of Moscow in the 200 individual medley (2:15.19) and 100 breaststroke (1:09.98) and Sarah Shields of Lake City in the 50 free (25.03) and 100 free (54.05).

Area individual boys winners were Matt Heston of Lake City in the 50 free (22.42), Devin Hougardy of Moscow in the 100 fly (53.69) and 100 back (53.48), and Christian Johnson of Moscow in the 100 free (48.47). Hougardy also helped the Bears win two relays. He teamed with Azusa Otawa, Jeff Tibbals and Johnson to win the 200 free relay (1:31.36) and the 400 free relay (3:22.50).