Austin junior Helen Heimark reached her goal, while Austin’s 200-yard freestyle relay team came up short at the Class ‘A’ girls state swimming and diving preliminaries at the University of Minnesota Aquatic Center in St. Paul, Minn. Friday.

Heimark lowered her qualifying time in the 200-yard freestyle by a full second as she took 14th in the prelims and she will now swim in the consolation race Saturday.

“That was the best time of her life,” Packers coach Lynn Gulbrandson said. “She took a second off her time from sections, and that was her goal to swim on Saturday.”

Heimark swam a time of 1:59.91 Friday and was about two seconds from making the finals.

The Austin 200-yard freestyle relay team of Heather Johnson, Mikayla Finney, Merideth Fritz and Heimark failed to advance to Saturday’s round as they didn’t finish in the top-16.

The team finished 20th with a time of 1:43.20.

The Packers’ time on Friday was about seven-tenths of a second slower than their qualifying time and they were just half a second from reaching the top-16.

Saturday’s finals begin at noon.