Published: February 10, 2010 12:20 am      

Zehner gears up for familiar trip

Logan swimmer to compete in 200, 500 free events at state

Peyton Zehner is focused on having a good time at this weekend’s IHSAA Girls Swimming and Diving State Finals.

Or more specifically, good times.

The Logansport junior is making her third state finals appearance. This year, for the first time, she is competing in two individual events: the 200- and 500-yard freestyle events.

“At state I’d like to swim a 1:56-low in the 200 to break the Logansport record,” Zehner said. “In the 500, I just want to improve my time some more.”

The state finals preliminaries will be held Friday night beginning at 6 o’clock at the IU Natatorium in Indianapolis. The top 16 finishers in each event advance to Saturday’s consolations, and the top eight advance to the finals.

Zehner swam a 1:59.6 at the Warsaw Sectional last Saturday to win the 200 free there for the second year in a row. She dropped her winning time by more than three seconds from a year ago and hopes to continue to drop time at the state finals. She swam a 1:58 at the North Central Conference meet two weeks before the sectional.

“With the better competition, I’m hoping to swim a better time,” she said.

In the 500 free, Zehner broke her personal-best time by four seconds with her winning time of 5:29.9 at the Warsaw Sectional, advancing to the state finals in that event for the first time.

Logan coach Jon-Myckle Price said hard work has led to Zehner’s success and improvement in the pool.

“She’s trained harder than I’ve ever seen her train, and that’s why she’s so fast,” he said. “Physically, she’s a lot stronger than she was the previous two years. She’s lost 15 to 20 pounds at least. She’s really slimmed down and is all toned up.”

Price added that Zehner is a strong all-around swimmer and that “she could have probably won the 100 breaststroke at our sectional.”

Zehner’s sectional winning times have her seeded 29th in the 200 free and 34th in the 500 free going into the state finals.

In her state finals career, as a freshman, Zehner finished 35th in the 50 free in 25.84 and 27th as part of the Berries’ 400 free relay team in 3:46.8. As a sophomore, she placed 37th in the 200 free in 2:04.1.

Even if Zehner breaks Laura Brown’s school record in the 200 free on Friday, she doesn’t think that time alone will be enough to get her into the consolation round.

“Probably not,” she said, though, “my placement would be better if I swam that time.”

Zehner hopes to eventually swim at the Division I level in college. She said her best event is the 200 free.