Seaside High School’s young swimmers posted strong performances and lots of season-best times during the district meet Feb. 15 at the Astoria Aquatic Center.

Freshman Ellie Smith led the girls team, finishing third in the 100-yard backstroke and logging a fifth-place finish in the 200-yard freestyle.

Junior Kayla Reckmann finished fifth in the 100-yard butterfly after carving eight seconds off her personal best time.

For the boys, Alex Arden, Mika Cannon, Kaden Bingham and Grayson Patton finished second in the 200-yard medley relay. Cannon finished fifth in the 100-yard freestyle and sixth in the 50-yard freestyle.

Though the Seagulls boys will be losing their senior sprinting pair of Cannon and Arden, the future looks bright for the girls team, which will return all of its swimmers next season.

The Seagull boys finished sixth at the district meet, while the girls team finished seventh.

Astoria boys finish second

The Astoria boys swimming team, led by Finn Bizzell, Gabe White, Casey Dopp and a strong senior class, finished second at the district meet.

It was the team’s best finish since 2011 and comes after two third-place finishes in the last two seasons. The second-place trophy capped off a season that included a Cowapa League championship.

“We had a lot of kids swim their best times of the season today,” said Paul Gascoigne, Astoria’s head swimming coach. “They stepped up and they raced, it was phenomenal to watch. As a team they just did amazing.”

The Newport boys team, the state favorite, won the district title.

Bizzell is off to state as the district champion in the 50-yard freestyle and 100-yard butterfly. He goes into both events ranked second in the state in the 4A/3A/2A/1A Division. He concluded his high school career at the Aquatic Center with an incredible anchor leg in the boys 400-yard freestyle, in which he overtook a swimmer from Taft to help the Fishermen finish the race in second place.

The Astoria 400-yard freestyle team also qualified for the state meet, to be held Saturday at Tualatin Hills. In addition to Bizzell, swimmers on the team are Dopp, Sam Reid and John Ero. Reid also finished fourth in the 100-yard backstroke.

White swam his season-best time in the 100-year breaststroke, finishing fifth. He also finished sixth in the 100-yard butterfly. Dopp also clocked season-best times in his events, finishing fourth in the 500-yard freestyle and sixth in the 200-yard medley.

The Astoria girls team finished fourth, benefiting from a strong performance by senior Hazel Towsey-French, who swam season-best times in both the 200- and 500-yard freestyle. She finished third in both races, and her time of 6:06.97 qualified her for the state meet. To cap off the meet, she added her fastest-ever 100-yard relay split in the girls 400 freestyle relay.

Juniors Lillian Smith finished fifth in the 50-yard freestyle and fourth in the 100-yard freestyle. Josie Reeves finished fifth in the individual 200-yard medley and fifth in the 100-yard backstroke.

The Valley Catholic girls team won the district meet.