Swimmers dominate in Douglas

Sonja Karp
NLJ Sports Editor
 
Five Dogies swam in Douglas last weekend, and in all individual races but one, a Newcastle swimmer out-touched their opponents to take first place. In addition, one more Dogie punched his ticket to the state meet as Robert Humes cruised to a first-place finish and a 3A qualifying time in the 50 Free.
“It was cool for Robert, and I was glad to see him qualify this early,” said head coach Doug Scribner. “Last year, it took him a little while to get into the race and just relax and swim, so to see him qualify takes the pressure off him. Now I think he’ll be more relaxed as he goes into the 100 and he’ll qualify there as well.”
The Dogies started the day off right when the team of Ramsey Gross, Travis Scribner, Humes and Zade Orsborn won the 200 Medley Relay with a 5-second lead over the second-place Douglas team.
“We swam really well and Ramsey, especially, had a pretty amazing swim. His start was so impressive that one of the pretty good swimmers from Douglas even commented on his start,” Scribner said. “Ramsey was practicing his backstroke starts during warmup and they looked really good. His body was completely out of the water, which is amazing.”
In the next race, Logan Olson lost his goggles on his dive in the 200 Free so he did the entire race with the backstroke and still won. 
“If he had been able to swim the race with the freestyle, he probably would have qualified,” Scribner reasoned. “He swam the whole race tough and strong.” 
The 50 Freestyle was dominated by the Dogies as they finished in the first three spots as Humes, Orsborn and Scribner took first through third, respectively. 
“Zade beat Robert to the turn, but then Robert came back and beat him to the wall by a body length,” Scribner explained. “His turn was pretty good, but then he poured it on in the last 25 meters. I don’t know where that came from but when he came off the wall, he was really strong.”
Orsborn was the only Dogie in the 100 Butterfly, and he once again swam it with a qualifying time. However, he would come in second to Jeffrey Cuevas, a strong swimmer from Douglas who finished with a 4A qualifying time. 
“Zade has been working on the fly pretty hard, because this is what he wants to race at state. He was pretty tired, but his first 75 looked great,” Scribner said. “He came out very strong with a great first split, but his last 25 was slow. Apparently he choked on water on the last turn so he knew his last 25 wasn’t his best.”
Humes and Olson were both up next in the 100 Freestyle, where Humes touched the wall first. Olson finished fourth, but in doing so put up a PR taking a second off his previous best time.
“After qualifying for the 50, Robert also swam well in the 100 and he took 2 seconds off his time from last week,” Scribner began. “He is now really close to qualifying so I’m confident he will do it soon.”
Gross opted to swim the 400 Freestyle in Douglas and he won the grueling race 6 seconds ahead of the second-place finisher, and also took a second off his previous best time for a new PR.
“Ramsey really swam a smart, strong race,” Scribner said. “He stayed right with the first kid and then picked it up in the last 75 meters to get past him by a pretty good margin.”
In the last individual event, the Dogies went one and two in the
100 Meter Breaststroke as Gross finished first with Scribner right on his tail for second. 
“We have a team full of breaststrokers,” Scribner said, laughing. “Zade and Nate [Strickland] are really starting to improve and Travis has dropped 8 seconds in the breaststroke since the beginning of the season.”
Finally, the 400 Free Relay wrapped up the meet and the team of Scribner, Humes, Orsborn and Olson finished just out of the top position. 
“Logan swam the anchor leg and he’s really coming along,” Scribner said. “His form and technique looked good and he swam it strong which is a
big improvement over the last couple of weeks.”
Finishing well in all their events, the Dogies scored 256 points off of five kids to take second place, so both individually and as a team, Coach Scribner noted, his team is looking good.
“We have one more hard week left, so we should see times really start to drop here in the next couple of weeks,” he predicted. “We will finally see Buffalo this week, so that will be good to see how we’re doing.” 
The Dogies have only one meet this week which is also Senior night for the team. This Thursday action will begin at 4 p.m. at the Kozisek Aquatic Center.