Rob Hale didn’t expect to be in this situation.

Certainly, his Greely High girls entered the season with top-of-the-line swimmers such as Sarah Easterling and Sara Schad, but their depth couldn’t match that of defending Class B state champion Mt. Desert Island.

Three weeks ago, though, Hale saw a glimmer of hope. Then, after giving eventual champion Cape Elizabeth a run for the title at the North Southwesterns, Hale saw real possibilities.

Now, after perusing entries for the Class B girls’ state meet scheduled for Tuesday at Bowdoin College, Hale finds his Rangers with a 10-point edge over MDI on paper.

“This is a total surprise to me,” he said. “At the beginning of the year, I knew we still had the returning swimmers, but we didn’t have the depth.”

What changed was the rapid development of four young swimmers — sophomores Kat Bower and Sarah Lawless and freshmen Kate Dransfield and Meagan Currie — along with the emergence of first-year diver Amanda Stewart, a senior and four-year swimmer who will also race the 50-yard freestyle.

“Those four kids are probably a year ahead of where I thought they would be,” said Hale. “We will have kids scoring in the consolations (places nine through 16), which we didn’t have last year.”

Greely qualified 17 swimmers for the state meet to MDI’s 12, a reversal of last year’s numbers.

Stewart’s father, John, is the school record holder (412.55 points) and a state champion in diving, and Amanda had talked about the event, but she never embraced it until this season. At Southwesterns, she placed sixth of 10 divers, and she’s seeded sixth of nine at the state meet.

“She’ll be my first female diver to swim and dive in a state championship meet,” Hale said.

No Class B girls team has successfully defended its state title since Falmouth won four in a row through 2007.

Waynflete, the South Southwesterns champion for the first time since 1949 — that’s a 63-year gap between titles — should be competitive but doesn’t have the numbers to challenge either Greely or MDI.

“We’re probably two swimmers away,” said Waynflete Coach Jim Harvey. “We just don’t have the depth.”

In the Class B boys’ meet Monday at Bowdoin, Greely is shooting for its third straight title. The Rangers, coming off a solid victory over Cheverus and Cape Elizabeth in a very competitive North Southwesterns meet, are seeded first in all three relays and boast a first or second seed in five individual events.

No school other than Greely or MDI has won the Class B boys meet since Old Town in 2003.

IN CLASS A, Bangor is favored to win its sixth straight boys’ title Tuesday at the University of Maine.

Bangor has four qualifiers in every individual event, including diving, and is the top seed in two of the three relays, coming up a quarter of a second shy of Cheverus in the 200 free relay.

Even so, Cheverus Coach Kevin Haley said the Stags are preparing to make a run.

“Anything can happen,” he said. “We’re going there to win it. That’s our attitude.”

One wrinkle Haley will employ is limiting junior Connor Pothier to one individual event so that he can swim in all three relays. Most of the best swimmers go two and two.

“A lot of people don’t do that,” Haley said. “But relay points count double, so we’re going to go after it.”

Cape Elizabeth’s Evan Long, the defending champion in the 200-yard freestyle, isn’t entered in the event this year. Long is joining teammate Marcus Cloutier in the 50 free and will also swim the 100 breast stroke, as the seventh seed.

“He wanted to try something different,” Cape Elizabeth Coach Ben Raymond said of Long. “We’ll see what happens. Either way, he’ll swim well and it should be fun.”

Conover will challenge Deering sophomore Eric Delmonte in the 200 individual medley and try to defend his title in the 500 free.

The Bangor girls, coming off their 14th straight Penobscot Valley Conference championship, will try to defend their state title Monday. North Southwesterns champion Cape Elizabeth will compete without standout sophomore Sydney Wight, who will be on a family vacation. Messalonskee, led by standout senior Lindsey Prelgovisk, is also in the hunt.

“The girls meet should be pretty good,” Raymond said.

MASSABESIC QUALIFIED its largest team in recent memory, nine boys and nine girls, for the Class A meets. If organizers find themselves without an anthem singer, they should look no further than Massabesic Coach Kevin Broad, who has been with Seaglass Performing Arts in Kennebunk for 10 years and delivered a stirring version to kick off the South Southwesterns girls’ meet last weekend.

“I sing,” Broad said, “when there aren’t kids to do it. I like to give them the chance whenever they can.”

Staff Writer Glenn Jordan can be contacted at 791-6425 or at:

gjordan@pressherald.com

Twitter: GlennJordanPPH