The Milan Boy’s Swimming and Diving Team traveled to Holland for the MHSAA State Finals this weekend. We swam season best times and competed hard. Since the formation of the Milan Program by legendary Coach Chuck Lott in 1970, Milan has attended and scored in every MHSAA State Meet. The boys had a tall task but swam very well and our 200 Free Relay which had just qualified last weekend, made it to Finals and brought home a 16th place finish. In Friday’s prelims we had season best and career best times. The Medley Relay of Freshman Ryan Johnson, Junior Cameron Garcia, Sophomore Jameson McShane and Junior Dylan Nichols all swam fantastic and we finished in 28th. Freshman Alec Markham competed in the 200 and 500 Free events individually and had career bests in both. Alec finished in 24th in the 200, and 20th in the 500. Junior Tadas Zukovskis had a great meet, as he swam the 100 Fly and 100 Back Individually and dropped significant time off his career bests in both. Tadas finished in 18th in the Fly and 23rd in the back. The 200 Free Relay had a beautiful swim in prelims to qualify in 14th. Markham, Zukovskis, Garcia and Nichols all swam lifetime bests. In finals we battled and secured their place in history as they scored and extended our points stream at the State Meet. The 400 Free Relay was another great swim for us. Markham, Zukovskis, Nichols and McShane all swam their hearts out, but we came up just short of making it back by 0.4 seconds and we finished in 19th. We had a fantastic season and weekend. The boys started to build something that we can extend on next year. Our numbers in the program as a whole were up from 14 boys last season to 23 this year. We were able to make all three relay State Cuts this season, and all of State Swimmers will return!!! As a staff, we are very happy with the effort put forth by the team. We will continue to build, and work in the offseason and next year to be even better. Thank you for your support and coverage of these hard working boys. Thank you as well to everyone in the community who supported the boys and the program. Coach Heikka Photo Credit: Stephen Cook* * We want to send a huge thank you to Stephen for all the work he puts into these photos. Many probably don't realize he shares his work with us at no charge. Milan Athletics can't thank you enough Stephen!