Bailey Grinter vies for first Edwardsville girls state swim championship

 Edwardsville swim sensation Bailey Grinter has a dream of a state championship in her sport.

She hopes to be the first Edwardsville High School girl ever to capture an individual state championship today in her favored event – the 100-yard backstroke. Grinter qualified from Friday’s prelims with a time of 54.87, almost a second faster than the second best time of 55.4.

Grinter also ranked near the top in the 50 free, where she is seeded fourth place. She qualified with a time of 23.79, only a fraction .15 seconds away from top pace of Bartlett’s Kayla Filipek.

“We are definitely trying to keep level heads and keep doing what we have been doing,” Grinter’s coach Christian Rhoten said. “We don’t want to celebrate yet, there is still a lot of racing left. The time in the backstroke in the prelims was definitely a confidence booster.”

Diver Taylor Seilheimer was 41^st out of 48^th on the opening day with 153 points. The relay teams of Grinter, Emily Webb, Victoria Brady and Josie Bushell competed in both the 200-yard freestyle and 400-yard freestyle relays, but did not qualify.

Finals begin today at 1 p.m. Look for full results in Edglentoday.com and Riverbender.com by Sunday morning.