Swimmers have a light week
The Dogie swim team traveled to Douglas for a triangular Thursday for their only competition of the week. There the team finished first against Douglas and the Buffalo junior varsity team in points, and won six of the nine individual events as well as two of the three relay events.
Though only one personal record was set on Thursday, as a team four swimmers showed marked improvements in their time in six different events from when they swam in the Douglas pool last year.
“It’s a meter pool, so it’s a little bit longer and some of the kids commented that they felt that,” said head coach Doug Scribner. “It’s also the only time we swim there and their time is definitely slower because you add about two seconds per 50 compared to yard pools. I just told them to go out and swim competitively, which is what they did.”
Gabe Hoover improved his 50 backstroke split in the 200 Medley relay by nearly three seconds, Isaiah Anderson cut nearly ½ a second off his 50 split in the 200 Freestyle Relay, and Logan Olson cut almost five seconds off his 100 split in the 400 Freestyle Relay.
In individual events, Olson cut 9.5 seconds in the 200 Freestyle, Harrison Gross took over 3 ½ seconds off his time in the 50 Freestyle, while Anderson also took 5.69 seconds off his time in the 100 Freestyle.
“Logan was trying to go under two minutes in the 200 Free, but it’s hard to do that in a meter pool,” Scribner said. “He did swim it better than he did in Cheyenne last week though, so that was good.”
Hoover was the lone swimmer to swim a PR for this season when he dropped two seconds with his win in the backstroke, finishing a full 10 seconds ahead of second place.
John Sandrini touched the wall first in the 400 Freestyle where he finished 15 seconds ahead of second place, then anchored the 200 Freestyle Relay where he also out-touched all other teams.
“It (the 500) was a fun race. The best part about it was the fact that I was in the end lane because I had a no-time previously,” Sandrini said. “So Coach was right there giving me signals. At one point, I was about 300 yards in and he was giving me the kick signal, so I gave him a thumbs up as I was doing a stroke so that
was pretty funny. Watching myself lap the kid next to me was also pretty awesome.”
Sandrini got out of the pool just to anchor the 200 Freestyle Relay in the very next event.
“We call that the true 500,” Sandrini said. “I actually went a 32, which isn’t bad for a meter pool, especially after just swimming the 400.”
Sandrini had a little pressure as the anchor leg, so he had to push himself to keep the Dogie lead over Douglas and he did touch the wall first, three seconds ahead of the Bearcat anchor.
This week, the Dogies will go to Gillette for an invitational on Friday and Saturday. Scribner described this meet as a big state invite with many teams in attendance for the chance to compete in the state meet pool.
“We have several who are qualified in different events, so we will probably enter them into their preferred events so they have a chance to swim them in that pool prior to state,” Scribner said. “This weekend will be a good opportunity for those who are close to qualifying because they should be entered into heats that will give them the opportunity to race in those events and improve their times.”
