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38 | November 23, 2016 | The Lockport Legend SPORTS
lockportlegend.com
Merk medals as Porters show mettle at state meet
Max Lapthorne, Editor
Lockport freshman phenom
Lindsey Merk added
the first of what figures to be
many medals to her trophy
case this past weekend.
Merk finished third overall
in the 100-meter butterfly
Saturday, Nov. 19, at the
IHSA State Swimming and
Diving Finals in Evanston.
Her time of 55.56 in the finals
bested her preliminary
time, but it fell just short of
her seed time of 55.52.
Ending up on the podium
in her first high school season
was definitely a success
for Merk.
“I just wanted to make
Top 6,” she said. “I just
wanted to come into this and
do what I do — come out
and do my best and do what
I had to do.”
Merk finished with the
best qualifying time in the
state in the 100 fly, so there
were high expectations for
her coming into the state finals,
despite her age.
“There was a lot of pressure
coming it and doing
what I had to do,” Merk said.
“The atmosphere was crazy
and [was] not something I
had experienced before.”
Even before she stepped
foot on campus at LTHS,
people around the program
knew she would accomplish
great things; it was just a
matter of her putting in the
work and executing when
the time came.
“I know last year a lot of
people were telling me I was
going to do well in state, but
my goal was to make Top 6,
and I ended up Top 3, so I’m
Oliwia Wolek, a sophomore, is one of the top swimmers at
Lockport in her first year attending the school.
happy with how everything
went,” Merk said.
Merk also competed in the
100-yard backstroke where
she narrowly missed out on
qualifying for the finals by
finishing in 15th place with
a time of 1:38.17. But the
100 fly is the event Merk has
been focused on for a long
time.
“I’ve been pretty much a
flyer my entire life, and it’s
something I want to do, so
I went for it and wanted to
make it happen,” she said.
In the 200 freestyle relay,
seniors Brittney O’Neill,
Makayla Kraus, Lauren Estes
and sophomore Emily
Johnson finished 21 out of a
possible 36 with an overall
time of 1:38.17, three-tenths
of a second faster than their
seed time.
“That was three of our seniors,
this was that their last
meet, so getting them to go
faster was fantastic,” Lockport
coach Grant Ferkaluk
said.
The Porters’ 200 medley
relay team of O’Neill,
Oliwia Wolek, Merk and
Lauren Estes teamed up to
finish in 25th place with a
time of 1:49.67, which was
just off their seed time of
1:48.75. While the 400 free
relay team of Merk, Wolek,
Johnson and Estes finished
in 3:35.99, almost the same
as their seed time, which
earned them 22nd place.
Johnson and Wolek also
competed in individual
events, with Johnson taking
31st in the 200-yard freestyle
with a time of 1:56.97,
and Wolek finishing 36th
overall in the 200 individual
medley with a time of
2:11.37. Wolek also competed
alongside Merk in the
100 fly, putting up a time of
58.16 in the prelims, good
for 29th place.
Additional reporting by
Contributing Editor Micheal
Wojtychiw and Assistant Editor
Brittany Kapa.
Lockport’s Lindsey Merk competes in the 100-yard backstroke Friday, Nov. 18, at the IHSA
State Swimming and Diving Finals in Evanston. Photos by Carlos Alvarez/22nd Century
Media
Oliwia Wolek takes part in the 200 individual medley, in which she finished 36th overall for
the Porters.
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