5A high school swimming: Bengal boys in front as expected after Day 1; Miner girls a bit of a surprise

PROVO — After the first four events in the 5A swim meet the Brighton boys team, as expected, has taken a commanding 155-82 lead. On the girls side Bingham is sitting in first place after Day 1 with a solid team performance.

"We liked the fact that our girls came out to compete," said Bingham's head coach Andee Bouwhuis.

The Miners did not have any first place finishers, but had several athletes finish on the podium. Kirsten Mathewson finished second in the 200-yard freestyle, with teammates Kiersten Bradshaw and Mackenzi Bradshaw placing fifth and seventh.

Andee Guy, Lindsay Westra, along with Mathewson and Barrow comprised the Bingham 200-yard medley relay that placed third.

Brighton, Lone Peak and Alta finished second through fourth in that order, but the teams are only separated by three total points.

Like Bingham, the Bengals did not place any top finishers but had a good team effort overall. The most notable finishes for Brighton include a fourth-place finish in the 200-yard medley relay and a fourth-place finish from Katy Daggett in the 200-yard freestyle. Daggett is only one of several very impressive freshman swimmers at this year's meet. Lone Peak's Sam Scoresby placed first in the 200-yard freestyle and Brittani Finlayson took third in the 200-yard individual medley event.

Scoresby and Finlayson, along with Rachel Hubert and Breanna Burk took second on the 200-yard medley relay.

Alta brought home the gold in the 200-yard medley relay, but it was Brianna Francis who had the race of the day for the Hawks.

Francis, who is a freshman, took first and broke the state record in the 200-yard individual medley.

"It feels amazing!" Francis exclaimed. She was quick to thank her great friends and family for all of the support and success.

The previous record of 2:04.68 was set by Sara Jayne Christiansen of East in 2006. Francis eclipsed the mark with a time of 2:04.03.

The final winner of the day was another freshman, this time hailing from Riverton. Abbey Sorensen turned in a winning time of 24.12 seconds in the 50-yard freestyle.

In the boys division, Brighton wasted no time jumping out to an early lead as Long Gutierrez, Kyle Spicer, Ryan Brinkerhoff and Tanner Weist won the 200-yard medley relay by a comfortable margin.