Nathan Decker was biding his time.

The Eastwood junior knew he had to finish just well enough at the Division II sectional swim meet two weeks ago to advance to last Saturday's district meet at Bowling Green State University. Then he would really turn on the jets.

“One of his goals was to make sure he was under five minutes at the district meet,” Eastwood coach Carolyn Strunk said. “He wasn't fully rested for the sectional, so we didn't expect him to be under five minutes. Some swimmers, either we know or they have a better than average shot at making it beyond the sectional meet to make it to districts.

“Nathan, having been a state qualifier last year in the 500 freestyle, we felt he would just swim through the sectional meet so he would be prepared and tapered for the district meet.”

The 5-foot-10 Decker placed second in the 500 free at the sectional meet, in 5:03.43, to advance to districts, where he won the event with a career-best time of 4:50.74. He posted the 13th-best qualifying time (out of 24 swimmers) for this week's state meet in Canton.

Eastwood swimmer Nathan Decker.(Press photo by Lee Welch/FamilyPhotoGroup.com)

“That was a very good swim for me,” Decker said. “That was my best time by five seconds. There was some good competition this year and I was ready to race.”

Strunk said, “His performance Saturday was exactly the way we wanted him to swim it. He controlled the first 100 and made sure he worked on getting faster throughout the course of the 500, and he made sure he was ready to race the swimmers he was competing against.”

Decker also took fourth in the 100 butterfly to advance to the state meet in that event, which he's only been swimming since November. Decker swam the fly in 57.52 seconds at sectionals, then turned in a time of 54.74 at districts.

Decker placed 15th in the 500 free, in 4:59, at last year's state meet. He has higher goals this season.

“I'm seeded 13th,” Decker said, “and I'd like to stay around the same. At the end of the year I was doing the times I wanted to get back to state. I'd like to get into the top 16 in the fly, because I'm seeded 21st. I'd like to get top 16 and get to the finals. That will probably take a 53 (seconds). I've been swimming (the fly) since November and I have been training for it, so I was ready to swim it.”

Strunk, who coaches swimmers from Eastwood, Bowling Green, Anthony Wayne and Elmwood with her husband, Gary Lane, said Decker has a solid shot to make it into the top 10 in the 500 free. The top 16 placers in Thursday's round advanced to the finals.

“Realistically, I'd like to see him move into the top eight this year,” Strunk said. “It's going to be a tight race, based on (time) sheets out right now. Hopefully he'll be physically and mentally prepared. He's been to the state meet before, so he has that as an advantage over those who have not been to the state meet.”

In October, Decker and Bowling Green sophomore Peter Burroughs traveled to Colorado Springs, Colo., to train at the U.S. Olympic Training Center. Strunk said Decker got the opportunity to train at altitude as opposed to sea level and to work with better swimmers and other coaches.

“There was just a lot of training up there and we learned about nutrition and how to fix our strokes and stuff,” Decker said. “It helped out a lot.”

Decker, who has a 3.7 GPA and is a member of the National Honor Society, wants to drop at least three seconds off his times at the state meet.

“It all depends,” he said, “on how I feel.”

Others qualifying for the Division II state meet were divers Bailey Dipman (Genoa), Samantha TenEyck (Lake), and Jon Schaefer (Lake). Lake swimmer Adriana Cannon qualified in the 100 butterfly and Oak Harbor swimmer Danielle Franck in the 100 breaststroke. In D-I are divers Megan Siford (Clay) and Oregon resident Dylan Szegedi (St. Francis de Sales).

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