Two Packer veterans will be wrapping up their high school swimming careers and two sophomores will be getting their first taste of a big time meet at the Class A state swimming meet in the University of Minnesota Aquatic Center in Minneapolis Thursday at noon.

Austin’s state-qualifying 200-yard freestyle relay team includes seniors Maddie Kinney, who will be swimming in her third state meet and Mikayla Finney, who will be swimming in her fourth state meet, and first time state qualifying sophomores Emma Kleis and Abby Gogolewski.

The Packers weren’t exactly counting on making it to state when they were in the 200-freestyle relay consolation finals at the Section 1A meet and, but they swam faster than the state cut time to advance. Now the Packers are seeded 16th out of 23 teams for the preliminaries.

“I was a bit nervous about not making it [to state] this year and it was such a good moment [when we qualified]. Everyone had their hands up and we were screaming and yelling,” Kinney said. “It ended the night off really well.”

The 200-yard freestyle relay team will swim in the preliminaries Friday and if they finish in the top-16, they will advance to Friday’s finals, which start at noon.

Kleis is happy she can finally shed the alternate label. The last two seasons she went to the state meet as an alternate, but now she’ll finally get her chance to swim in the state meet.

“Both Mikayla and Maddie have been an inspiration,” Kleis said. “I remember watching them the last two years at state and I wanted to be that someday. I even memorized the cheers they did before they swam at state. I’m so happy that I get to be part of it.”

The Packers swam a time of 1:42.20 at the Section 1A meet and Albert Lea is the top-seeded team at state with a time of 1:36.07.

Since they were competing in the consolation finals at Saturday’s Section 1A meet, the Packers didn’t have a team within seven seconds of them in the race as they were well ahead of the field. They were competing against the clock.

Finney said the team had to dig deep to beat the state cut time.

“We were basically just racing ourselves. We didn’t have anything to go off of, it was just our determination to get to state that got us there,” Finney said. “I am so excited to go to state. I’m shaking. It’s just amazing and I can’t put it into words.”

Gogolewski was filled with emotions on Saturday and now she’s relishing in the chance to swim at the U of M.

“It was very nerve racking to get here, but it’s very relieving now that we actually are making it,” she said.

The Packers would like nothing more than to finish their season in Saturday’s finals and Kinney thinks they have good chance of doing just that.

“I think we will make the finals and I hope we will place higher than what we’re seeded,” she said. “I know what we have and it’s our last shot and our last 50 of the season. It’s a fast pool at the U of M. I have no doubt that we can do better than what we did at sections.”