Two of the faces have changed from last year’s state qualifying 200-yard free style relay team for the Austin boys swimming team, but the speed hasn’t dropped off much as the relay team will make it’s third straight trip to the Class ‘A’ state swimming meet this Friday at noon at the University of Minnesota Aquatic Center.

“The four by fifty has always been Austin’s race,” said relay anchor Jaceb Crews who was on last year’s state relay team and also qualified for the 50-yard freestyle at state this season.

Another thing similar to last year is the Packers will likely have to improve on their best time if they want to race Saturday. The relay team has the 17th fastest time (1:34.07) in Class ‘A’ and only the top 16 advance to race Saturday at noon.

Dropping times is nothing new for the group as they considerably improved their time at the section finals to get five-hundredths of a second below the state cut time.

 “I was kind of worried that section finals would be our last time swimming together, but now we’ll get at least one more time,” said relay member Zach Rausch, a junior who will be swimming at state for the first time. “I’m looking forward to hanging out with these guys in the cities and swimming with them again.”

Austin senior Eric Lenway is the other returnee from last year’s state qualifying team and he said he’s going to try to shave a full second of his time to help his squad out.

“I’m hoping to get in the low 23s,” he said. “It’s been a really tough year and it’s probably been the hardest year I’ve had and I’ve been swimming since I was a freshman. We had to drop quite a bit of time to get to state.”

Austin head coach swimming and diving coach Lynn Gulbrandson thinks this team has the ability to make it to Saturday.

“We think we have something left,” he said. “Three of the four were lifetime bests at sections and now we need all four to hit lifetime bests.”

No matter what, the experience will be memorable for all four athletes, including first-timers Rausch and Jordan Stasi, a junior.

“It’s really exciting to be going to state,” Stasi said. “I owe a lot to Crews and Lenway for pushing me this season and Zach really stepped it up. It was a great season.”

Besides anchoring the relay team, Crews will also compete in the 50-freestyle, where his qualifying time (23.11 seconds) ranks 20th in the field. At the section finals he improved his time by three-hundredths of a second to slip under the state cut time.

“I was competing with the better guys who were right next to state cut,” said Crews, who is making his third trip to the state swim meet. “They were swimming right next to me so I had a chance to swim right with them and pass some of them.”

One thing Crews has going for him is the same thing Lenway has – familiarity with the pool. Lenway said that will be a significant advantage.

“It helps a lot,” he said. “We have experience with the pool, the blocks and the walls. We’ll probably have a better swim than we had last year.”