swimmer took home the state Federation title in 200-yard individual medley Saturday in Buffalo, winning in 1 minute, 49.06 seconds.
The time qualified Yeager for All-American status. It was two-tenths of a second off the state Federation record set by Holy Trinity’s Jack Wagner (1:48.84) in 2009.
“I am very happy with my time in the 200 IM,” Yeager said. “I took out the butterfly long and smooth and it felt easy. My main competition in this race was En-Wei Hu Van Wright [Stuyvesant], who I've competed with for years. En-Wei is a terrific backstroker, but I was able to increase my lead during the backstroke leg of the IM.
“Just before the race, Coach Dan [McBride] told me to really hit my dolphin kick in my back-to-breast turn, because the breaststroke leg is probably the most critical leg of the IM,” he continued. “I split a 31 on the breast and had a big lead going into the final 50 yards. I knew that En-Wei was a faster freestyler than me, so it was good that I was able to get so far ahead of him. At this point, I was pretty confident that he wasn't going to be able to catch me.”
Van Wright finished second in 1:49.70, with Yeager out-touching him to the wall.
Yeager, from Huntington, also placed fourth in the 100 backstroke (50.37 seconds). The will swim at Junior Nationals in Orlando on March 20-24, followed by the USA Grand Prix in Indianapolis March 29-31.
Read more about the weekend on the Bulletin Board at http://www.friarswimming.com/.
