Dogies face doldrums

Sonja Karp
NLJ Sports Reporter
 
Though the Newcastle Dogie Swim team has only competed in six meets, they are at the midpoint of their season, and head coach Doug Scribner admits that his boys are tired. Despite fatigue, the boys performed rather well in Cheyenne and Douglas last week.
“We swam tired all week,” Scribner explained. “That’s normal this time of year, and even though there were no PRs this week, we did swim much better than we were at this point last year.”
Monday night’s practice didn’t help swimmers get refreshed as it was the annual swimathon where the boys swim laps to raise money for the program. The Dogies swam for an hour, and all returning swimmers completed more laps than they did in previous years.
“Austen Kenney swam 72 50s in an hour, so that adds up to around 2.1 miles, and that is also 250 yards more than he did last year” Scribner smiled. “Even Grayson [Ramsey], who is new to swimming this year completed 50 50s so that was pretty awesome.”
The Dogies jumped on a bus on Tuesday and headed to Cheyenne to compete in a quadrangular with Central, East and South. According to Scribner, his team swam competitively and there were a few who came close to qualifying in new events.
Kenney was just a little over a second away from touching the wall in qualifying time in the 200 Free, James Cox was within a second in the 50 Free while Travis Scribner was a second and a half from punching his first state ticket in the 100 Breaststroke.
“I was glad to see those guys put up pretty good times, and Zade [Orsborn] dropped good time in the 200 Free and is now just four seconds away from qualifying in that,” Scribner nodded. “They really like that meet because they have a nice pool which makes it fun for them.”
Cox was the only swimmer to swim under a qualifying time when he finished fourth place in the 100 Backstroke in 1:06.65. The backstroke is his strongest event, and one in which the junior punched his ticket to state in the first weekend of competition.
On Saturday, the Dogies headed to Douglas for their invitational. The pool there is a meter pool, so times are always slower due to having to swim longer distances in each race, and though it was an invitational meet, only Douglas, Natrona and Newcastle were in attendance.
In addition, only four members of the team were able to go due to prior commitments or illness/injury. 
“They looked pretty good even though they were tired,” Scribner began. “They were also on their best times for the season, and performed better than they did in Douglas last year.”
Kenney dropped two seconds in the 50 Free and he was 13 seconds faster in the 100 Backstroke, Robert Humes was five seconds faster in the 100 Free and Cox dropped in the 100 Backstroke as well.
“Zade swam the 400 Free and did a pretty good job. He was close to a qualifying pace, but he did say his arms were dead at the end of it,” Scribner explained. “Now when we come back to the 200, it should be a different race for him.”
The four swimmers also competed in the 200 Medley and 400 Free relays to bookend the meet. In the final relay, the team opted to each swim a medley meaning they did their 100 meters alternating between backstroke, breaststroke, butterfly and freestyle every 25 meters.
“Even doing an IM, the guys ended up in second place which was awesome,” Scribner grinned. “It was a little bit of a different thing which made it fun for them.”
The Dogies are about five weeks out from Conference, and with only having competed in six meets, Scribner admitted that he is still trying to figure out where his swimmers are in the statewide standings.
“It is a little tough because I usually have a better idea about where we are at this point,” he frowned. “But we have three meets this week, and three next so that will be great, especially with Zade and Grayson who are new and still figuring out how to swim their races competitively.”
This week the team was at home for a quadrangular on Tuesday, and will travel to Rawlins for a Triangular including Buffalo on Friday and then continue on to
Lander for a large invitational meet on Saturday.