Photo by Sam Thiel Marshall’s Nyssa Bentz poses with her championship heat medals after competing in the 50 and 100-yard freestyles during the Class A meet on Friday at the University of Minnesota Aquatic Center. Bentz came in seventh and eighth, respectively, in her two events.

MINNEAPOLIS – After coming away with a medal in the 50-yard freestyle at the Class A meet last season, Nyssa Bentz was hungry for more.

That drive started right at the beginning of the season for the Marshall junior, who quickly set a pair of goals for herself: reach 23 seconds in the 50 free and 52 seconds in the 100-yard free.

Flash forward to Friday afternoon, where Bentz found herself in a position to break those goals in the championship heats in both events after qualifying the day before. She came close on both of those marks she had set back in August, as she recorded times of 23.99 and 52.32 seconds, respectively, and earned two medal finishes in the final day of state at the University of Minnesota Aquatic Center.

“At the beginning of the year, I looked at my times (from 2017) and talked with my coach (Nikki Bell) and made some goals. My two goals were to get 23 and 52,” Bentz said. “It’s really exciting that I set a goal, I went for it, trained for it and made it there.”

Bell said for Bentz to be able to nearly break her goals as well as come away with medals is a testament to her mindset and drive to what she wants to achieve in the pool.

“That was her goal; she’s had appropriate and incremental goals, so to be able to do those things and achieve them is awesome,” Bell said. “It was great to have both of her swims be medaling swims. That was her plan and she executed it, that’s kind of her style.”

Bentz got things going with the 50-yard freestyle, the event she competed in the championship heat a year ago. While she finished in the same spot (seventh), Bentz beat her time from last year, lowering it from 24.03 to 23.99 seconds. Hutchinson’s Grace Hanson took first with a time of 22.94. Bentz was also two-hundredths of a second away from the sixth-place time (Stella Urness, Breck – 23.97) and five-hundredths of a second from the fifth-place time (Grace Farnsworth, Monticello – 23.94).

The time of 23.99 for Bentz also was a personal best. She said it felt good to be able to find a way to lower her time in a tough event.

“It feels really good. Again I’m really happy with it and with sprint races it’s really difficult to shave off time,” Bentz said. “I’m glad I’m getting down there, slowly, but I’m still doing better.”

Bentz later competed in the 100-yard freestyle, where she would earn an eighth-place finish with a time of 52.32 seconds. Benilde St. Margaret’s Taylor Williams took first with a time of 50.44, followed by Hanson (50.95) and Lexi Kucera (51.07) of Hutchinson.

Bentz said she was happy with how she competed overall in both of her races and that she gave it her all to close out the season.

“I’m really happy with it; it was a really good week and there’s not much more that I could’ve done,” Bentz said. “In my 100, I did add a little time but it happens and maybe that race just wasn’t my perfect race. I’m still happy with it.”

Bell said their main focus between Thursday’s prelims and Friday’s finals were getting out to a fast start and making sure her turns were as smooth as possible.

“So in the 50 on Friday, she felt just a little bit awkward on her second 25 yards coming home, just felt like it wasn’t her normal smooth stroke. We talked about getting out fast and did a lot of turn work in warm-ups to smooth that out and it seemed to help,” Bell said. “And then we wanted her to get out and beat 24 (seconds) in the first 50 yards of the 100 and then bring it back. We got close, I’m sure it hurt, coming home in that second 50; she had a really beautiful first turn and it was her plan to get out quicker and hopefully come back with her.”

Bentz said her coaches have helped shaped who’s she’s become in and out of the pool and pushed her to strive for her best every single day.

“They’ve really just pushed me to be the best that I can be,” Bentz said. “That’s what we need in a coach and I’m really grateful for that.”

Going into next year, Bentz said they’ve already got some ideas set in place on how they can improve and make themselves better as a team going forward.

“We’ve already started planning some training and have been rattling off ideas just to get ourselves better,” Bentz said. “Things like technique and weightlifting and we’re going to train hard this next year.”

Bell said that plan of attack will need to stay consistent if they want to bring more competitors to the state level next season.

“All season they need to practice competing with the swim club and have to stay strong, so we’re going to have to make sure we’re hitting the weight room and doing those things during the summer as well as the season. And we need to be obviously consistently under those state cuts prior to our season starting if we want to be sure that we will end up here next year.”

Bell added that recruitment is also a key factor, and said they want to help spread the word about getting started in swimming with Marshall, even if you’re new to the sport.

“Recruitment is part of it, we want to grow. These girls work really hard and we just want to spread the message that coach Kat (Deutz) and myself aren’t opposed to teaching people how to swim,” Bell said. “So you can be new to swimming at Marshall High School and learn the sport in six years, that’s reasonable.”

50-yard freestyle

Championship heat

1. Grace Hanson (Hutchinson) – 22.94

2. Makayla Suominen

(Cloquet-Esko-Carlton) – 23.37

3. Ava Hoffman (Visitation) – 23.53

4. Emma Kern (Delano) – 23.74

5. Grace Farnsworth (Monticello) – 23.94

6. Stella Urness (Breck) – 23.97

7. Nyssa Bentz (Marshall) – 23.99

8. Maddie Houge (Mankato East) – 24.13

100-yard freestyle

Championship heat

1. Taylor Williams

(Benilde St. Margaret’s) – 50.44

2. Grace Hanson (Hutchinson) – 50.95

3. Lexi Kucera (Hutchinson) – 51.07

4. Makayla Suominen

(Cloquet-Ekso-Carlton) – 51.38

5. Kali Sayovitz (Sauk Centre) – 51.56

6. Anna Lucas

(Sauk Rapids-Rice) – 51.76

7. Ava Hoffman (Visitation) – 51.94

8. Nyssa Bentz (Marshall) – 52.32