Swimmers kick off their season

Sonja Karp
NLJ Sports Reporter
 
After three long weeks of practice, the Dogie swim team got to stretch their legs a bit and dive into competition at Kelly Walsh on Dec. 20 and 21. Apparently, they were more than ready as two swimmers qualified for the state meet right out of the gate, and several more were within just a few seconds of doing the same.
Senior Austen Kenney and junior James Cox punched their ticket to the culminating meet, Kenney in the 50 and 100 Free and Cox in the 100 Backstroke.
“Both James and Austen went to camps this summer and each have shown great improvements already this season,” head coach Doug Scribner began. “James has also been working on his technique in the breaststroke and has his kick down now, so that opens up more possibilities for him.”
The Dogies eased into their season with a sprint invitational on Friday the 20th. Rather than running a full pre-invite, Kelly Walsh hosted a quick meet with swimmers competing in abbreviated versions of most events. 
“The way they ran the meet on Friday was kind of neat,” Scribner smiled. “There were 10 events including two relays. Doing nearly all of the strokes as 50 yard races instead of 100s was fun and gave the kids a chance to swim the events they would normally swim, but made the meet go a lot faster.”
The Dogies opened up their season turning in some very good times, and when Scribner compared those times to how they started things off in 2018, he found that some are starting faster this year and several improved from where they ended the season last spring.
“Since it was our first meet, it was exciting to get them in the water and let them race after three weeks of practice,” he nodded. “There was some anticipation of wondering how we would do, but practice had been going very well, so I was excited to see what they could do, and they didn’t disappoint. I feel like we’re in a very good spot for this time of the year.”
Saturday marked the first full meet of the season for the Dogies as the invitational got underway. As a team, Newcastle finished seven of eight teams, defeating Natrona by 11 points. 
Kenney was the first of the squad to punch his ticket to the State meet as he finished 12th in the 50 Free in 24.37. With just one race between events to catch his breath, he then went on to nab ninth in the 100 Free touching the wall in 57.38 which was under the 3A qualifying time.
Cox earned his state berth in the 100 Backstroke when he claimed the eighth spot in 1:05.46. He is also poised to add the 100 Butterfly to his repertoire. Though he didn’t swim the open 100 Fly, he did compete in the 50 open and swam the Butterfly leg of the 200 IM relay and his times in both gave Scribner confidence in the junior’s potential to qualify.
“James’ fly is really fast,” Scribner exclaimed. “He swam that leg in the Medley Relay and he did it in 28 seconds which is pretty quick.”
Zade Orsborn who is new to the NHS swim team, but not new to swimming, is also close to qualifying in a few events. The sophomore has competing in club, and has a legitimate chance to make the state meet in the 100 Butterfly, as well as the 100 and 200 Free. 
Conrad Prell is close to qualifying in the 200 Free, Robert Humes is close in the 50 and the 100 Free, while Travis Scribner is close in 100 Breaststroke. Each of these are within only three to five seconds of a qualifying time which Scribner is confident will be easy to achieve. 
Grayson Ramsey is brand new to swimming this year, but he has picked it up really quickly according to Scribner. 
“Grayson’s best stroke is probably the breaststroke and he’s pretty quick. At this point it’s really about building his endurance,” he nodded. “He swam the 50 in that on Friday and then the 100 on Saturday, and he did pretty well in both races.”
The Dogies have another three weeks off before their next competition which kicks off on Friday, Jan. 10, in Cody and Saturday, Jan. 11, in Powell.