Hartland High School sophomore Avery Evenson set a personal-best time while surging to first place in the 200-yard freestyle at Friday's preliminaries in the Division 1 state swim finals at Oakland University in Rochester Hills.

Evenson finished the 200 in a time of 1 minute, 50.85 seconds, which is four seconds better than her seed time of 1:54.90.

"She was quite fired up, which is awesome" said Hartland coach Maria Puranen of Evenson. "It was a goosebump kind of day."

Evenson finished fourth in the 100 and is guaranteed an all-state finish in both events barring a disqualification. She finished third in both events as a freshman.

Kirsten Stroven will be seeded 12th in the breaststroke for Saturday's finals after finishing in 1:08.60.

"We're hoping she can can get under 1:08 and finish at the top of the flight," Puranen said.

The top 16 swimmers in each event advance to Saturday's finals, but athletes seeded 9-16 cannot break into the top eight in the finals, no matter how fast their time is.

Hartland's 400 freestyle relay team of Carolyn Robinson, Hannah Grosso, Jocelyn Reinert and Evenson are seeded 16th for the finals. 

Senior Sarah Smith, along with Evenson, Reinert and Grosso, are seeded 13th in the 200 freestyle relay.

"We're hoping to get as high in flight B with the relays as we can," Puranen said. "The girls are all fired up. They've got something left in the tank."

The Eagles have a chance to improve on last year's 13th-place overall finish.

Saturday's finals begin at noon and should wrap-up close to 4 p.m.