Two MRA College Swimmers Tear It Up At Conference!

Two swimmers from Moses Lake have breakout swims at the Northwest Conference Championships last week in Federal Way.  Freshman swimmers Cole Lindberg of Willamette University and Zachary Washburn of Whitworth University, competed in their college conference championships during their first year of attending their respective schools.  Cole and Zachary were teammates for many years swimming for the Manta Ray Aquatics swim team of Moses Lake, as well as swimming four years with the Moses Lake High School team.  After the past two years of having limited training and competitions due to the Covid-19 restrictions, as well as dealing with the passing of their beloved coach and mentor Tony St. Onge last year, both were looking to make a fresh start in college.  Oddly enough, even though they ended up at different schools over 400 miles apart, they continuously find themselves swimming in the same venues against one another.   
Cole and Zachary both competed in 4 relays and 3 individual events each for their respective teams.  They both saw huge success in their ability to help their teams score points as well as achieving personal best times in all of their individual events.  Washburn would be awarded the Northwest Conference Freshman Swimmer of the Year, while helping the Whitworth University Men’s Swim Team to become the 2022 Northwest Conference Champions.  Willamette University’s men’s team finished 7th overall. 
With Cole’s incredible ability to out kick most opponents off of his starts and turns, he helped his 200-yard & 400-yard medley relay teams to a 6th & 5th place finish respectively.  His split time of 50.71 in the 400-yard medley as the butterfly leg was an amazing drop-in time from his personal best, and the 4th fastest in the entire event.  He was also part of Willamette’s men’s 800-yard & 200-yard freestyle relay teams, both of which finished in the top 8.   Cole is a natural butterflyer, and his best individual event is the 100-yard butterfly.  Entering the meet, Cole was seeded 8th in his signature event.  After dropping over an amazing second and a half, he entered finals as the 4th seed.  During finals, Lindberg would drop another half second for a total drop of 2.17 seconds in that event, and finish in 4th place overall.  Cole also entered the meet as the 8th place seed in the 200-yard butterfly, was 5th after prelims, and finished 4th overall in the event during finals dropping over 5 seconds from his seed time.  He also dropped .29 seconds in his individual 100-yard backstroke event.
Washburn also competed in 4 relays and 3 individual events.  On the first night of the meet, Zachary swam the second leg of the 800 freestyle relay helping his team to not only win the event, but also break the conference and school records as well as qualifying them for the NCAA Nationals meet in Indianapolis next month.  They would go on to finish the meet doing the exact same thing in the 400-yard freestyle relay.  Washburn also led off in both the 200-yard medley and freestyle relays, both finishing in 2nd place.  Zachary competed in the 50, 100, and 200-yard freestyle individual events.  In the 50, he was seeded 1st going into to prelims and finals, and would remain there winning the event with over a half second time drop.  His time tied a conference and school record, as well as qualified him for NCAA Nationals.  He would go on to finish 2nd overall in the 100 and 200-yard events, achieving another NCAA time in the 100.   
The Manta Ray Aquatics swim team is excited to get these two athletes back in Moses Lake to compete through the summer as they both train for the next college swim season.