All season, La Salle-Peru senior Peyton Heagy has worked to improve her turns in the pool.

That paid off Saturday as she won the 50-yard freestyle and the 100 freestyle at the United Township Sectional to earn an automatic trip to state in both events.

Even better, Heagy eclipsed the state-qualifying standards in both events by swimming 23.88 seconds in the 50 (bettering the standard of 24.34) and 52.3 seconds in the 100 (beating the standard of 52.86).

“My main focus throughout my high school season has always been faster turns,” Heagy said. “This year, I have had an improvement in my turns, so in my sectional races good turns were my focus and helped me to swim below the qualifying times.”

She’s hoping to improve her turns even more at this weekend’s state meet at the FMC Natatorium in Westmont.

Preliminaries begin at 3:30 p.m. Friday with finals set for Saturday.

“My main goal is trying to swim around the same times at state as I did at the sectional,” Heagy said. “Getting another best time would be awesome, too. At the sectional in the 100 free, I flipped at the wall too early in my second flip turn which probably cost me a tiny bit of time, so another goal of mine is to make sure all my turns are perfect.”

Heagy hopes perfect turns can help her advance to Saturday.

The top six times from the preliminaries qualify for the finals, while the next six swimmers advance to the consolation finals, known as the B final.

Heagy is seeded 15th in the 50 freestyle, just two one-hundreths of a second behind the No. 12 seed. The No. 1 seed is Urbana University’s Sally Ma at 23.06 seconds.

In the 100 freestyle, Heagy is seeded 18th, less than two tenths of a second behind the No. 12 seed. Kaneland’s Leah Hayes is the top seed at 49.78 seconds.

“It would be really cool to move up a few spots to swim in the B final,” said Heagy, who also swam at the state meet as a sophomore.

Whatever happens, Heagy is grateful to get the opportunity to swim at state this season after the meet was canceled last year because of COVID-19.

“I’m very happy there will be a state meet this year,” Heagy said. “It means not only a lot to me, but I’m sure many other seniors are happy they can compete in one last IHSA state swim meet.”