Park Hill South’s Grant Carpenter is one of four Panther divers who have qualified for the Class 2 State Swim Meet.
PARKVILLE – Coming off a program-best second-place finish at state swimming in 2022, Park Hill South will be sending 12 players back to St. Peters.
En route to getting back to the Class 2 State Swim Meet, it’s hard to overlook the divers who have paved the way time and time again this fall. On multiple occasions – especially the COMO Invite at the end of September – the divers have helped lead the Panthers to victory.
Park Hill South had its district on Nov. 4. Five sophomore divers have competed throughout the year and four impressed at districts, each of them qualifying for state.
Grant Carpenter ended in 1st with 427.15 points, while Cooper McQueen was a very close 2nd place, 4.6 points behind. Atreyu McCauley finished in 3rd place with 391.55 points and Henry Dorothy took 5th place with 356.45 points.
Brendan Anderson has been a solid diver throughout the year but didn’t compete at districts. MSHSAA rules state only four athletes can compete for a school in any event and Dorothy earned that spot over Anderson.
Going into state, Carpenter is ranked 3rd and McQueen is ranked 4th. McCauley isn’t too far behind in 9th and Dorothy is sitting in 13th.
McQueen, McCauley and Dorothy all dove at state last year but failed to earn any points. McQueen took 22nd place, McCauley took 23rd place and Dorothy took 28th place.
Anderson went last year and finished 26th as Carpenter is new to the team this year. Nick Maris is the only non-diving junior who will compete at state.
Outside of Maris and the divers, Park Hill South is sending seniors Jacob Duckworth, Jack Francis-Cummins, Alex Briggs, Grady Burns, Drew Franklin, Matt Henderson and Roman Lewis to state. The Class 2 State Swim Meet will be at the St. Peter’s Rec-Plex on Nov. 11 after preliminaries the day before.