Kelly wins Austin’s first state swimming title since 2015
Published 9:44 pm Saturday, March 20, 2021
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Austin senior Logan Kelly won Austin’s first Minnesota State Swimming and Diving Meet championship in six years when he took home a title in the 200-yard freestyle at the University of Minnesota Aquatic Center Saturday.
Kelly cut two seconds off his seed time to win the 200-yard freestyle with a time of 1:41.48. Beck/Blake eighth-grader Henry Webb took second with a time of 1:42.56.
Kelly finished with a time of 55.08 seconds in the 100-yard breaststroke to take second and James Pan of Breck/Blake took first with a time of 54.16 seconds.
Kelly has ad his eye on the breaststroke title for quite some time, but was glad he was able to score one gold medal at the big meet, especially considering there were no state events in the spring or fall of 2020 due to the pandemic.
Logan Kelly
“It felt good to win even though it wasn’t the event I was hoping to win,” Kelly said. “I was really excited when I found out we were going to have state, even if it was split into two different meets.”
Kelly competed in the early session of the state meet, which meant he had to sit on his times for about six hours as he waited to see how the second session went.
“I thought it would be more nerve wracking than it was but it still made me a bit nervous,” Kelly said.
Craig Heimark was Austin’s last state champ when he won the 100-yard freestyle in 2015 and Kelly broke Heimark’s 50-yard freestyle record by swimming a leg of 21.1 seconds in the eighth place 200-yard freestyle relay, which also included Winston Walkup, Kenny Cabeen and Riley Haugen.
The Austin 200-medley relay team of Walkup, Kelly, Joey Hilkin and Haugen took eighth and Walkup took 19th in the 100-yard backstroke.
Kelly, who has committed to Division I Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, holds five individual AHS records in the 200 freestyle, 200 individual medley, the 50 freestyle, the 500 freestyle and the 100 breaststroke. He was also on the record breaking 200-medley and 400-freestyle teams and he holds the Big 9, Section 1A, and Class A True Team State records in the breaststroke.
The Packers finished 12th out of 30 teams with a team score of 81. Breck/Blake took first with a 418.5.
