GRESHAM — Silverton’s boys finally brought back some hardware.
The Foxes 200 medley relay team of junior Jason Orr, junior Ross Mackinnon, senior Jaiden Davis and freshman Blake Doerfler placed fifth Saturday in the OSAA Class 5A state swimming meet at Mt. Hood Community College with a time of 1:48.87.
It was the first time a boy individual swimmer or team from Silverton had won a state meet medal – a girls relay from Silverton placed sixth in 2010.
Silverton’s 200 medley relay team of Jaiden Davis, Ross Mackinnon, Jason Orr and Blake Doerfler placed fifth at the OSAA Class 5A state tournament, the school’s first medal in a boys state swimming event.
It’s another step for Silverton’s swimming program that has been making strides in recent years.
“It’s becoming more serious,” Davis said. “We work hard. We work really hard. Die like every single day during practice. At the time you’re like: ‘Why? Why are you doing this? Do I really need to swim today?’
“Then we do things like we did today to get the medal and you realize that putting in all that work is worth it.”
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The team came into the meet seeded seventh and placed seventh in Friday’s preliminaries, but another team ahead of them was disqualified, giving Silverton the No. 6 and final spot for the finals.
The same group came into the meet seeded fourth in the 200 free relay, but was eighth in the prelims so they didn’t advance to the finals.
With nothing to lose, they gave the final race everything they had.
“We were sixth so we weren’t really worried about dropping lower because we couldn’t do worse,” Orr said. “We were like, hey, we’re in the finals so let’s have fun.”
Dallas senior Jolie-Rae Ford finished her high school career by earning her fourth state meet medal.
The senior placed fifth in the 100 freestyle in 55.14.
Dallas swimmer Jolie-Rae Ford placed fifth in the 100 freestyle in the OSAA Class 5A state swimming meet on Saturday, Feb. 18, 2017.
“I’m really happy with it,” she said. “I don’t think it could have gone any better. I think it was great.”
This was the shortest race at which she had placed at the state meet as her previous state meet placings were in the 200 and 500 free (twice).
True to form, she closed her final race Saturday strong and
“I thought it was really good, actually,” Ford said. “I mean even though the time wasn’t as good as it was at districts, I still had a really great race so I’m glad.”