Sedona Swim Team?s 12-year-old Jacob Decker qualified for the Pacific Swimming Far Western meet Friday, March 30, in Pleasanton, Calif., after his performance at the Arizona State Championships last weekend in Phoenix.

Sedona Swim Team?s 12-year-old Jacob Decker qualified for the Pacific Swimming Far Western meet Friday, March 30, in Pleasanton, Calif., after his performance at the Arizona State Championships last weekend in Phoenix.

Decker had an impressive morning preliminary state swim in the 11-12 age group 50-yard-butterfly with a personal best time of 29.70 seconds, which qualified him for the evening finals. Six hours later, Decker dropped his preliminary time to qualify for the Far Westerns with an outstanding finals swim at 29.44, placing sixth overall in the state of Arizona.

?All of our Sedona swimmers just had exceptional swim after exceptional swim,? said Head Coach Erin Estes.

?Thirteen-year-old Zach Morgan rallied by swimming the anchor leg for his team in the 13-14 age group 200-yard medley relay, 400-yard medley relay and 200-yard freestyle relay. Morgan dropped his time on every split, but his anchor split on the 200 free relay was the most fun to watch as he dropped his previous time from 30.30 to a 28.32,? Estes said.

?I don?t think anyone can really understand just how fantastic our Sedona kids swim. I mean, we don?t even have starting blocks to practice with so we learn and practice our starts for about 10 minutes during warm-ups at the meet pools we travel to. The athletes we compete against have adequate facilities and their kids practice critical skills daily,? Estes said.

Fourteen-year-old Evan Decker dropped his time for personal bests in five out of six swims at state, swimming the 50-yard breast stroke in 35.80 seconds, the 50-yard freestyle in 25.61, 100-yard freestyle in 55.77 and the 50-yard backstroke in 30.18 seconds.

?Evan [Decker] also had great swims on his 50-yard butterfly at 29.5. He pulled down a negative split on his 100-yard butterfly in the 400-yard medley relay, going out in 33.07 for the first 50-yard split and a 29.87 for his return 50-yard split. [Decker] really knows how to drive it home, ? Estes said.

Ten-year-old Tristan Decker dropped his time in six out of seven events.

?When we taper for a meet, we expect our swimmers to achieve some personal best times, but Tristan dropped 6.62 seconds off his 200-yard freestyle for a personal best swim of 2:40.17 and 9.50 seconds off his 200-yard individual medley for a new time of 3:03.87. These are totally awesome time drops even after a good taper,? Co-Head Coach Roger Svensson said.

Tristan Decker had personal best swims in the 50-yard breast stroke with a time of 44.35, 100-yard IM at 1:26.03 and 50-yard backstroke at 39.34.

Thirteen-year-old Seth Syvertsen had the highest-ranking finals event for Sedona Swim Team. Syvertsen?s 50-yard breast stroke finals time of 30.25 placed him fourth overall in the state of Arizona in the 13-14 age group.

?Seth [Syvertsen] is working hard to get ready for his freshman high school season next year and the work he is doing now will really pay off for him,? Svensson said.

Syvertsen placed ninth overall in the state of Arizona in the 13-14 age group in the 100-yard breast stroke with a time of 1:09.92 and 12th overall in the 200-yard breast stroke with a personal best of 2:34.20.

?Syvertsen?s winter swimming achievements will carry right over into his first high school season,? Estes said. ?The level of biomechanical technique training, aggressive physiological training and top-level competition experience that club swimmers get exposed to in the longer United States Swimming format really prepares swimmers like Syvertsen and [Evan] Decker for the 10-week high school season,? Estes said.

The Sedona Swim Team swims at the Hilton Sedona Resort & Spa weekdays from 4 to 6 p.m.

?We knew our Sedona athletes had a lot of confidence going into this state meet and we actually expected they would do as well as they did. I think that is a good sign that our team is swimming in the right lane,? Estes said.