Shelbyville senior Karissa Hamilton is the top seed in two events after Saturday’s sectional preliminary round at the New Palestine Girls Swimming and Diving Sectional.

Hamilton is the prohibitive favorite in her best event – the 50-yard freestyle. Her time of 24.70 seconds bested runner-up Kaelynn Martin’s time by .80 seconds in the shortest race in the competition slate. Martin is from Connersville.

Hamilton is the defending sectional champion in the 50 and will look to add a second sectional title today in the 100 freestyle. She produced the top time Saturday in the preliminary round at 55.69, taking nearly one second off her seed time.

Hamilton’s teammate, Marlee Rice, finished second in 55.84 and two more swimmers followed less than .33 second behind Hamilton, setting up a showdown in the sectional championship race.

The top eight qualifiers from Saturday’s preliminary races compete at New Palestine today to determine sectional champions and state finals qualifiers. The next eight fastest from the preliminaries also return for consolation events.

Shelbyville’s Miriam Garringer placed fifth in the 200 freestyle, cutting 3.50 seconds off her seed time. Garringer just missed qualifying for the championship race in the 500, finishing ninth in 5.58.70.

Rice also qualified for the 100 backstroke championship race. She finished fifth in qualifying with a time of 1:02.44, dropping nearly four seconds off her seed time.

Rice, Hamilton and Garringer will be joined by Madison Monroe in the 200 freestyle relay, which finished third (1:47.31) behind Greenfield-Central (1:46.09) and Mt. Vernon (1:46.25). Just 2.33 seconds separate first from fourth (New Palestine, 1:48.42) after the preliminary round.

Rice, Hamilton, Garringer and Jordan Tobler qualified fourth in the 400 freestyle relay.

Competing in consolation races will be Tobler (200 freestyle and 100 butterfly), Kylie Stader (100 butterfly), Garringer (500 freestyle) and Monroe (100 breaststroke).