At the 4A Kingco Swim and Dive Championships held last weekend at the University of Washington, Redmond High junior Nicholas Kodati had his best swim of the year in the preliminaries of the 100-yard butterfly, qualifying for state in a blistering 55.19 seconds, .31 ahead of the cut.

While Eastlake phenom Edward Kim ran away with the title in a meet-record 51.73, Kodati ended up placing fourth in the final heat with a time of 55.94.

On the diving board, sophomore Eric Klassen finished third with 358.65 points, trailing Skyline’s Max Levy (427.05 points). Klassen, whose older brother Phillip is out for the season with a back injury, has already earned a state berth for diving and will be trying to better his 12th-place finish from last year.

Other highlights for Redmond included the relay team of Michael Pavlov, Kodati, Drew McWhirter and Klassen placing 11th in 1:38.51 in the 200 free and the 400 free relay of Albert Jiang, Xavier Graham, Kodati and Pavlov taking eighth in 3:31.79. The team needs to shave off approximately five seconds off both of their freestyle relay times at Districts this weekend in order to qualify for state. The team also has a shot in qualifying a 200-yard medley squad, with Kodati, Pavlov, Graham and Jiang combining to swim a 1:47.65 in the prelims, with the state cut at 1:44.50.

Graham also took eighth in the breaststroke in 1:04.74. Graham’s mark was just shy of the state-qualifying time of 1:03.30.