Rochester Century advanced entries to the finals in all but two events in Thursday's Section One, Class AA boys swimming and diving meet preliminaries.
Mayo and John Marshall also advanced numerous entrants to the finals, which will be held at 1:30 p.m. Saturday at the Rochester-Olmsted Recreation Center pool.
Several Century competitors served notice on their foes in the finals by having one of the top times in the prelims.
Chris Freeman's 1:45.78 in the 200-yard freestyle was the fastest of the day by more than three seconds. Nikita Dolin's 55.15 in the 100 backstroke was more than two seconds better than the next-best prelim performance. Andrew Grosbach had the best prelim time in the 100 breaststroke. And Freeman and Chris Tri ran 1-2 in the 500 free, where Freeman's time was faster than was swum by last year's champion.
Also, Grosbach was second among 200 individual medley swimmers; Dennis Draper was second-fastest in the 100 free, and the Panthers' 400 free relay team had the best time of the day.
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Several Mayo and John Marshall athletes were also near the top in their events: Mayo's 200 free (first) and 200 medley (second) relay teams; 50 freestylers Luke Bower and Elliot Lynch of Mayo and Tanner Nimke of JM, who were 2-3-4 in that event; JM divers Conner Garrett and Austin Cook (second and third); Mayo's Sam Jaeger and Drew Hayes, who were 2-3 behind Dolin in the backstroke; and Mayo's Roy Pillers in the breastroke (third).
In alll, Century has 13 entries in the championship finals, John Marshall 13 (including four divers) and Mayo 11.
