FEDERAL WAY — Rebecca Yamada figures that sometimes stuff happens and you have to make the best of it.
For her teammate Medea Rusu, sometimes good stuff happens.
Yamada and Rusu, both from Ridgefield, capped off their senior seasons by earning runner-up finishes at the Class 2A girls swimming state meet Saturday at the King County Aquatic Center.
Yamada placed second in the 100-yard breaststroke, while Rusu was the runner-up in the 100 backstroke.
“It really means a lot,” Rusu said. “Going into this high school season, I didn’t really have a lot of training so I didn’t know what it would look like for me. And overall, I’m just really happy with my performance. It came with a lot of hard work.”
Rusu cut more than a half-second off her preliminary time to take second in 1 minute, 01.80 seconds, narrowly edging out two competitors for second place.
Like Rusu, Yamada also got off to a slow start this fall after circumstances — or “stuff” as she put it — kept her out of the pool for the summer.
While she was the defending state champion in the breaststroke, she was still happy with her runner-up finish in 1:09.81.
“I just wanted to do whatever I could do,” Yamada said. “I was happy with whatever. My last race of my senior year. So it was just kind of ‘have fun.’ So I had fun.”
Yamada endured more “stuff” during the prelims on Friday, when she was disqualified from the 200 individual medley.
“My goggles just completely flew off on the dive, which was not what I wanted,” she said. “But things happen. Unfortunately, this happened at state. That’s OK. Something will happen no matter what level you’re swimming.”
Yamada was disqualified because she did not touch the wall from her breaststroke to the freestyle with her hands simultaneously.
“Very minor thing,” she said. “I couldn’t see the wall. So, hey, it’s all right.”
Paige Dangleis of Hockinson also finished her high school swimming career on Saturday, earning a pair of top-4 finishes. She was third in the 200 individual medley (2:11.45) and fourth in the 100 freestyle (54.11).
“I’m really proud of what I did,” Dangleis said. “I changed up my events that I did from last year, and I think it was a good choice. … I’ve done the 100 free all four years, and I think that event alone is kind of tough, both physically and mentally. I was hoping for a different time, but I think what I did this year was pretty good.”
Rusu also earned a fifth-place showing in the 200 free (2:04.72). Jordan Zaemann of Seton Catholic was fifth in the 500 freestyle in 5:33.31. Raegan Zaemann of Seton Catholic was fifth in the 100 breaststroke in 1:12.18.
Seton Catholic’s 400 free relay of the two Zaemanns, Rachel Graeme and Natalia Stiltner was fourth in 4:02.36, and the 200 free relay was sixth in 1:48.44. Seton Catholic also captured the academic state championship for 1A schools.
In the 4A meet Saturday evening, Camas’ Lila McGeachy placed third in the 500 freestyle, finishing in 5:09.50, cutting more than two seconds off her qualifying time. The senior also placed seventh in the 200 freestyle in 1:56.80.
