Wildcat swimmers eye medals in first-ever state meet

Louisburg senior Brayton Brueggen will swim a pair of relays during the Class 5-1A state meet today at the Shawnee Mission School District Aquatic Center in Lenexa. Brueggen, along with Colton Prettyman, Colin Brown and Andrew Jamison will begin competition at 4 p.m.

LENEXA — Louisburg started competing in boys swimming during the 2019-20 season, and for the first time four years, the Wildcats will end their season competing against the state’s best.

After not sending anyone in the first three years of existence, the Wildcats will send four to the Class 5-1A Kansas State Swimming Championships, beginning today. 

Senior Brayton Brueggen, sophomore Colton Prettyman, along with freshmen Andrew Jamison and Colin Brown, will hit the pool at the Shawnee Mission School District Aquatic Center starting at 4 p.m. for preliminaries.

Between the four swimmers, the Wildcats will compete in five individual events to go along with two relays. It has been a long time coming, especially for Brueggen, who has been with the program since its inception.

“It means a lot to compete at state, as that was the primary goal the whole season,” Brueggen said. “The past couple of years we were so close to competing at the state level as we were just off by a couple milliseconds. I am looking forward to competing.”

Brueggen will join Brown, Jamison and Prettyman to compete in the 200-yard medley relay, along with the 400 freestyle relay. The group sits 16th in the medley and 13th in the 400 going into prelims. The top 16 finishers in the prelims earn a spot in the finals on Saturday.

“I think we will be competitive with the other teams (Friday),” Brueggen said. “We have the guys and the times to make it to finals on Saturday. We have been working together all season and should put up a good fight.”

Brown has had a big freshman season for the Wildcats to this point. He qualified for state in three individual events, but swimmers are only allowed to compete in two at the meet this weekend.

He has chosen to take part in the 200 freestyle and 100 butterfly. Brown currently sits 10th in both events and the top eight will earn state medals.

“It’s truly an honor that I have been able to compete at the level I have, and to be able to qualify for this meet as a freshman,” Brown said. “Coming into the season I had high expectations for myself. I wanted to qualify in most of the events I swam, but the relays were my favorite to qualify. To be able to be a part of the first Louisburg relay to ever qualify for state, while only having four LHS swimmers was very exciting for me, and the other swimmers.

“My goals for this weekend are to swim swim strong, drop time and represent LHS with pride.”

Jamison also qualified in a pair of events for Louisburg. He will compete in the 100 breaststroke, where he currently has the 13th best time and the 200 individual medley, where he is 18th.

“To compete at state as a freshman means a lot to me because it’s a memory I’m going to have for a long time,” Jamison said. “It really shows that all the hard work that not just me, but the whole team has put in, has paid off.

“I had high expectations for myself coming into the season including qualifying for state, but there is always a little bit of ‘Wow, I just did that!’ after every great race. You would need to add words to the dictionary to describe how excited I am. And as for goals, I just want to get a personal best and have loads of fun.”

As for Prettyman, he qualified in the 100 breaststroke in his final meet of the season last week at the ILC meet. He currently sits with the 12th fastest time.

The state finals will be held at 4 p.m. on Saturday.