The Oakville Senior High School boys’ swimming and diving team scored 70 points to place 13th of 45 teams at the state swimming and diving championships.

Oakville head coach Dan Schoenfeldt was pleased with the Tigers’ performance this season after taking 15th last season with just 44 points.

“They did really well,” Schoenfeldt told the Call. “I was very pleased with how we performed at state.”

The Tigers started the meet with a bang as they took seventh in the 200-yard medley relay with the team of juniors Jeff Gansmann and Tom Diekemper, senior Chris Duckworth and sophomore Ricky Kardell.

Oakville’s time of 1:41.95 was the third fastest in school history. The Tigers’ time of 1:41.48 in the preliminaries turned out to be the second fastest in school history.

“They have two of the top three times in school history,” Schoenfeldt said. “It was a lot of fun to watch.”

The Tigers then had a one-two combo punch in the one-meter springboard competition as junior Nick Stoppelmann took eighth overall with 327.95 points and senior Dan Duquette grabbed ninth with 314.55 points.

Stoppelmann had taken 10th in the springboard competition last season with 324.05 points.

“Nick has consistently climbed the ladder each year at state,” Schoenfeldt said. “He works really hard, and it’s paid off for him this year.”

Duquette had qualified for state as a sophomore, and the Oakville coach was very pleased with his effort this season.

“Dan came a long way and had a great year. I think that Dan’s interested in diving next year, and any team will be lucky to get him.”

In the 100-yard butterfly, Duckworth grabbed 10th place with a time of 54.55. He also took 16th in the 100-yard backstroke with a time of 57.74.

“Chris is our captain and is our best swimmer on the team,” Schoenfeldt said. “He really wanted the school record in the 100 fly and just missed it by 7/100ths of a second.”

The Tigers ended the meet with a ninth-place finish in the 200-yard freestyle relay with a time of 1:32.01. Kardell, Duckworth, Diekemper and Gansmann teamed up for the consolation finals win to end the meet on a strong note.

“We really wanted to get into the finals and were kind of down after the prelims,” Schoenfeldt said. “But winning the heat was a lot of fun to watch.”