The Redmond High girls’ swim team posted a phenomenal performance on the grandest of stages on Saturday.

Led by sophomore Heather Harper’s golden swim in the 100-yard breaststroke, the mighty Mustangs placed third in the team standings at the King County Aquatic Center in Federal Way with 148.5 points behind Garfield (157.5) and Jackson, which won the meet with 190 points.

The Mustangs’ third-place trophy at state represents their highest finish in school history. Redmond had eight top-eight finishes, including Harper’s gold-medal swim, a silver performance in the 200 medley relay and a bronze effort in the 400 free relay.

Senior Maureen Cardwell, the defending state 50 free and 100 butterfly champion, placed sixth in the 100 fly and seventh in the 50 free. Cardwell’s senior teammate, Becca Wyant, placed fourth in the 100 fly and seventh in the 100 back.

Harper also placed eighth in the 200 individual medley.

But the Mustangs’ moment of glory was Harper’s late comeback in the 100 breast, which looked to be tightly contested as the top three qualifying times were within .56 of a second of each other. Harper posted a time of 1 minute, 5.65 seconds in Friday’s preliminaries, while Snohomish’s Emily Ferrera led the pack at 1:05.09 with Garfield standout Maddy Morgan close behind at 1:05.24.

It looked to be a two-horse race between Ferrera and Morgan as Harper was in third by nearly a full second at the 50-yard mark at 30.69.

But she saved her best for last.

“Just take it out hard and strong, and then just bring it home,” Harper said of her race plan. “I can usually bring it home really well.”

Harper started to gain ground during the final 50 yards, and was about even with Ferrera with one length of the pool left to go, still trailing Morgan.

Harper poured it on down the home stretch and hit the wall at the exact same instant as Morgan, and the crowd gasped as they saw the official results. Both Harper and Morgan had tied with an automatic All-American time of 1:04.60.

Unlike the Olympic Games where instant replay and photos are used to break ties, under WIAA rules both girls earned a gold medal.

“I didn’t know what to think,” Harper said. “I really hoped I was going to win.”

Like Redmond cross country runner Mack Young did the weekend before in Pasco to win the 4A state championship, Harper used an amazing kick to earn Redmond’s only gold medal of the meet.

“Heather’s performance was amazing,” Barashkoff said. “She poured it on in the last 10 yards of her race, and she wanted to get to the wall first.”

FEARSOME FOURSOME

Unlike the league and district meets, when the “fearsome foursome” 200 medley relay team of Wyant, Harper, Cardwell and sophomore Melodie Nagasawa left the competition in their wake, the girls knew they were in for a battle against the likes of rival Garfield and a lightning-fast Jackson team.

Redmond was in solid second place after Wyant’s 27.54-second leadoff swim in the backstroke, and Harper gave the Mustangs the lead by swimming her breaststroke leg in 29.77 seconds.

The performance by Jackson’s Alana Pazevic, however, turned out to be too much to overcome. Pazevic, who won the 50 freestyle in 23.55, swam her 50 fly portion in a blazing 24.94 seconds to put the Wolves ahead for good.

Redmond finished with a season-best time of 1:49.38, good for All-American consideration, edged by Jackson with 1:48.02.

Cardwell, who was out of the water for five months due to a shoulder injury during the offseason, had a chance to defend her titles, making the finals in both the 100 fly and 50 free.

The senior, looking to become the first back-to-back state champion at Redmond High since 1997, finished seventh with 24.99 in the 50 free, and sixth in the 100 fly with a time of 58.94. Wyant placed fourth in the 100 fly in 58.44 after barely sneaking into the championship heat with the eighth and final qualifying spot.

“Maureen didn’t go as fast as she did last year since she’s recovering from her injury,” Barashkoff noted. “That cost a little bit there for her, but she stayed tough.”

400 FREE RELAY REDEMPTION

Redmond was in fourth place going into the final event of the meet – the 400 yard freestyle relay – and the Mustangs had redemption on their mind.

The Stangs suffered a disqualification in the relay during the previous week’s district meet due to an early exchange, and Redmond needed to place high in the championship heat of the 400 relay in order to crack the top three in the team standings.

Redmond responded to the pressure, with Nagasawa swimming a great anchor leg to just edge out Ballard’s Briana Meyer at the wall for the bronze medal.

The Mustangs finished third with a time of 3:40.41, barely ahead of Ballard’s 3:40.69. The narrow win enabled the Mustangs to leapfrog the Beavers into third place.

“They swam really, really well,” Barashkoff said. “You couldn’t ask for any better swims.”