ST. PETERS, Mo. — Rhett Spell’s future, for now, will be on the baseball diamond when he goes to college next year.
The Platte County senior committed to Benedictine College earlier this year and while his prowess on the playing field was noticed, he’s a pretty good swimmer too.
On Friday, Nov. 15, Spell earned his second all-state medal in a relay event when the Pirates finished in a tie for seventh in the Class 1 200-yard freestyle relay.
Platte County and Fort Zumwalt East each finished in 1:31.92 and had to share a spot on the same podium. Spell swam the first leg, followed by senior Joe Ragone, senior Baxter Stone and senior Brice Bills.
Bills made a late push to catch up to Logan Podhorsky of Fort Zumwalt East and finish at the exact same time. The two teams were on opposite ends of the pool, Platte County in lane one and East in lane eight.
The previous highest finish for a relay team at state for Platte County was eighth in 2017 in the 200 medley relay. Spell swam the final leg with former teammates Alex Beall, Jerry Orozco and Caden DeLay.
“It is kind of crazy to think about,” Spell said of winning his second medal. “Our team two years ago was pretty great but this shows we are better. It kind of blows me away.”
Platte County’s Baxter Stone swims the backstroke in the 200-yard medley relay during the Class 1 MSHSAA State Swimming & Diving Championships on Friday, Nov. 15 in St. Peters, Mo.
CODY THORN/Citizen photo
The Pirates swam better in the prelims on Thursday, Nov. 14, finishing in 1:31.59 to the cut as the seventh seed going into finals.
There were moments on Thursday, the Pirates had to wait and see if that time was good enough to get into the championship finals.
“We were nervous,” Ragone said. “It was a morale booster to show up and make sure we made the top seven.”
The difference in making the championship finals and consolation final is pretty substantial for three of those swimmers. Earlier in the day Stone, Ragone, Spell and Ryan Dye swam in the 200 medley relay and took 11th (1:44.45) but didn’t bring home any hardware. That is only for the finishers in the top eight.
“I say it is like varsity and JV. It is crazy to have this medal. It’s a difference between a medal and no medal to be in the championship finals. It is a huge deal when you get something like this,” said Bills, who looked down and held the medal in his right hand as a smile graced his face. “There was a lot going through my head. We were really close and I knew I had to do something crazy out there. It is all or nothing. It is my senior year and you know you have to go as soon as you hit the water. I pummeled through it and we got seventh. I was so excited … it was a dream come true.”
His teammates shared the excitement in bringing home a token from the road trip.
“I won’t take this off for approximately three weeks,” Spell said.
Ragone quickly added, “I’m wearing this to school.”
The only other event for Platte County on Day 2 of the event was Stone in the breaststroke consolation finals, taking 12th (1:02.70). He finished one spot lower than his seed time coming out of Thursday’s prelims but that came the very next event after the relay that took seventh.
“I kind of hoped for top eight but after the relay, I was OK with not making the top eight,” Stone said of the breaststroke event. “I was a little disappointed to not make the finals but I was excited with my swim and I was happy to make the finals (in the relay). “All of us being seniors and our last race, I wanted to go out and do something for the other swimmers to look up to and aspire to reach. We were up on the block and we saw the times and we tied and said ‘no freaking way that happened.’ We didn’t have our best swim on Thursday but ended up in a tie for seventh. I was excited for the whole team. We had so much success at state.”
Another highlight for Stone came in the 200 freestyle, where he swam 1:51.19 to break a school record. Alex Beall set the superlative last year at 1:52.45. When Stone told Beall he was swimming the event this year he was encouraged to break the record.
The record is the third that Stone put his name on in his time at Platte County to go along with the 200 freestyle and 200 medley relays.
“My biggest goal was to get my name up there,” said Stone, who will swim this summer for the Thousand Oaks Otters and coach Doug DeLay, about getting on the record board. “I’m so happy, especially with an individual event. It was huge. I feel like I left my mark on the team.”
The Pirates had a handful of other events that were in St. Peters but didn’t make it to the second day of the competition.
The 400 freestyle relay team of freshman Collin Burton, sophomore Dylan Bietz, Dye and Bills took 23rd on Thursday, while Dye was 24th in the 100 backstroke. Stone was 20th in the 200 freestyle.
Ragone and Dye were qualifiers in the 100 butterfly, finishing 31st and 32nd, respectively.
Dye was 24th in the backstroke and Ragone took 27th in the 200 individual medley.
Spell competed in the 100 freestyle and was 27th, while he and Bills took part in the 50 freestyle prelims as well with Spell taking 22nd and Bills finishing 26th.
As a team, Platte County was 16th again, this year finishing with 40 points.