Boys swim team finishes second at league meet

Louisburg senior Cole Brown finished second in the 200-yard individual medley, and also helped two relays to runner-up finishes, Wednesday at the Independent League Championships in Osawatomie.

OSAWATOMIE — In its final team meet of the season, the Osawatomie-Paola-Louisburg boys swim team left the waters with a strong performance.

The Miami County team finished second Wednesday at the Independent League Championships that was held at the Ozone in Osawatomie.

OZ-PAO-LOU racked up 388 points to finish runner-up to league champion Piper, which ended with 425 points.

Although they didn’t have any first place finishes, the Miami County crew had several runner-up individual performances and also took second in all three relays.

Louisburg junior Brayton Brueggen took second in the 100 backstroke and third in the 200 freestyle.

Brayton Brueggen, Braden Branine, Remington Rice and Cooper Hipp took second in the 200-yard medley relay in 1:57.23, while Rice, Colton Prettyman, Cole Brown and Hipp were second in the 200 freestyle relay in 1:42.65.

Sam Johnson, Luke Hebert, Drake Baus and Brown were runner-up in the 400-yard freestyle relay in time of 3:51.84.

Brueggen, a junior at Louisburg High School, finished second in the 100 backstrokes with a time of 1:06.17, while teammate Baus (1:11) and Evan Retinger were fifth and sixth, respectively. Bruggen also took third in the 200-yard freestyle in 2:11.05 and Hebert was second in 2:09.

Brown, who is a senior at Louisburg, had a strong performance in the 200 individual medley as he was runner-up with a time of 2:24. Branine, a junior, was fourth in 2:38.52.

Louisburg junior Braden Branine was second in the 100 breaststroke.

Branine, another Louisburg swimmer, competed well in the 100 breaststroke as he was second in 1:13.88. Prettyman also took fourth in the event in 1:18.

In the 100 freestyle, Rice, Brown and Hipp were sixth, seventh and eighth, respectively, in the seven.

Paola’s Sam Johnson was second in the 100-meter butterfly with a time of 59.86 seconds, while Drake Burdine, another Louisburg senior, was fifth in a season-best time of 1:12.47. Jace Retinger was sixth in 1:17.

Senior Drake Burdine had a personal best finish in the 100 butterfly and finished fifth.

Johnson also went on to finish third in the 50 freestyle in 24.84, while Hebert was second in the 500 freestyle in 6:00.39.

The Louisburg 200 medley and 400 freestyle relay teams will find out soon if they will qualify for the state meet this weekend in Topeka. Both have earned consideration times, as did Paola’s Sam Johnson, during the season.