Swimmers make the most of challenging weekend

Sonja Karp
NLJ Sports Reporter
 
In what could have easily been a weekend where the Lady Dogies struggled to put up good times in the pool, head coach Doug Scribner was pleased with the performance of his team as they competed in Sheridan on Friday and Douglas on Saturday. 
“We had improvements all over the place on both Friday and Saturday,” he exclaimed. “It’s hard to swim well on the second day of competition, but we probably had the best meet we’ve ever had in Douglas, so that’s great to see as we get nearer to Conference which is a two-day meet.”
The Lady Dogies went into the week focused on picking one event to improve upon for Friday. According to Scribner, each swimmer worked hard on improving in the event they chose, and the results were rewarding as all saw time drops in their events.
Hannah Gross and Rayleigh Shipp each focused on the 200 Free, Lydia Anderson chose the 200 IM, Moriahn Kenney picked the 50 Free and Autumn Mills defaulted to the 50 Free since she just returned to the pool this week after being ill. 
“Friday, our goal was to be competitive because we were swimming against Gillette and Sheridan who are two of the top three 4A teams,” Scribner began. “The girls had really good attitudes about having the opportunity to swim against some of the best swimmers that 4A has to offer, they were really excited and used the opportunity really well.” 
Hannah Gross continued to set new personal records for herself, and she did so in both Sheridan and in Douglas. On Friday, she shaved 1.41 seconds off her 100 Free time and .56 off her 200 Free time. In Douglas, she took .37 seconds off her 50 Free best. 
Gross was also particularly excited to face off against two of the state’s top 200 Free swimmers from Gillette and Sheridan on Friday. Unfortunately, the Campbell County swimmer was not entered in the race, but the Sheridan swimmer was. On her way to setting a PR in the race, Gross also blew the Sheridan swimmer out of the water, defeating her by half a pool length and finishing nearly 10 seconds ahead of her.
Gross then competed in the 100 Free and won that race, however, this time it was a photo finish as she touched the wall just .13 of a second ahead of the second place finisher from Campbell County.
On Saturday, the junior continued her winning ways placing first in the 50 Free and out-touching second place by nearly two seconds. In a race so short and fast, a two second lead is outstanding.
On Saturday, when the Lady Dogies were warming up for the meet, they complained to Scribner of being tired and slow. 
“When they got out of the pool, I just told them they would have to suck it up because this was great training for conference,” Scribner nodded. “The second day is important. You have to swim fast to make it to finals on the second day, but then on that second day, you have to swim fast despite being tired.”
With that in mind, the ladies swam really well on Saturday and nearly everyone saw time drops again. 
“We beat Douglas in team scores, and we got third in the Medley Relay which is the best we’ve finished in that event all season,” Scribner exclaimed. “That is very significant, especially after coming out of Friday’s meet at Sheridan.”
The Lady Dogie divers also competed well over the weekend. After a couple of weeks of lower scores, Becca Henkle scored back in the 130s on Saturday so is within range again of reaching the state qualification mark. 
“Becca has the talent, but she just needs more time on the board to gain consistency and be able to hit all her dives in one meet,” Scribner declared. “I would imagine that if you took all of her highest scores from each of her dives at meets this year, she’d be over 150 points. So all she has to do is put that together, and she’s got a good attitude and is continuing to work so that’s awesome.”
The Lady Dogies will head to Buffalo on Saturday for an invitational there.