On Thursday and Friday, Ionia traveled to Mason High School for the CAAC Red Prelims for swimming and diving.  Josie Phelps competed in diving on Thursday and is currently in 2nd place after 8 dives heading into Saturday's finals.

In swimming competition on Friday, the Ionia Bulldog swimmers did great.  Every swimmer who is competing for points qualified to return to the finals on Saturday.  No swimmers were disqualified from Ionia.  Currently seeded in first place is the 200 yard freestyle relay of Madeline McGee, Josie Phelps, Anouk Demel and Maelys Bonafe.  Bonafe in also seeded first in both of her individual events, 200 IM and 500 yard freestyle.  Currently seeded in second place in both of her events is McGee, in the 50 yard freestyle and the 100 yard backstroke.  Other swimmers in the top 8 include Phelps, Demel, Lepien, and Calah Holman.

Our young swimmers stole the meet with some substantial drops in times.  They moved up several places from where they were originally seeded.  Brynn Labadie dropped 16 seconds in the 200 yard freestyle and almost one minute in her 500 yard freestyle.  In the 500, Labadie moved up 7 places!  Katelyn Lamphere, Isabelle Robinson, Tessa Massengale and Martina Sierra all had strong swims in their first championship meet experience.  Abbye Wood, Sage Brown, Eily Martinez and Bella Reisbig also swam well as veteran team members.  Overall, there were 33 personal best times swam by the team members.  

The Ionia Varsity swim team returns to Mason tomorrow for the swim and dive finals.  It will be an exciting meet with several close races.  The meet starts at 2:00 p.m.