Swimmers start strong

Sonja Karp
NLJ Sports Reporter
 
The Newcastle Dogie swim team got off to a fast start last Friday as they opened up their season at the Powell Quadrangular. 
Right out of the gate, the squad got their first state qualifying swim when senior Garrett Merchen touched the wall in the 100 Breaststroke just under 3A qualifying time. Last season, Merchen was able to qualify in his signature event in the very last meet of the season, so head coach Doug Scribner was extremely pleased that he was able to pick up right where he left off.
“For our first meet, we did really well,” he grinned. “All of the guys have grown from last year, and the freshmen did well in the first meet of their high school career.”
Though Merchen remained the only Dogie to punch his ticket for the state meet over the weekend, sophomore James Cox was just a hair’s breadth from joining his teammate, missing out on qualifying in the 100 Backstroke by just .67 seconds. 
Sophomore Austen Kenney finished just .68 seconds off of the mark in the 50 Freestyle and only three seconds shy in the 100 Free, while freshman Travis Scribner made his varsity debut by finishing four seconds short of qualifying in the 100 Breaststroke.
Several other Dogie swimmers also made great strides at shaving impressive time off last year’s best, and all three relay teams finished better than their best times as the season ended last February.
Foreign exchange student Jae Hyun Lee showed the most impressive improvements by finishing three and a half seconds faster in the 50 Free, 12 seconds faster in the 100 Free and two seconds faster in the 100 Breaststroke than he had last year.
“I was very happy with how Jae swam on Friday,” Scribner began. “Though he didn’t do any swimming over the summer, he did play football, which got him into pretty good shape, and just coming in with the experience of last season has helped him immensely.”
Scribner pointed out that his swimmer’s participation in other fall sports also seemed to have given them a leg up as they came into this swimming season.
“Conrad Prell struggled with knee issues last year which held him up, but he was able to run cross country this year so he has started out strong,” he began. “Travis and Robert Humes also ran in the fall, so they have that conditioning already in place as well.”
Prell was close to qualifying in the 500 Free last winter, so that was the event the sophomore focused on in Powell. Though he finished 25 seconds out of qualification time, Scribner feels confident he will cut that time and punch his ticket to the culminating meet.
As a team, the Dogies finished in fourth place, but were only 20 points behind Worland. On Saturday, when the same four teams competed in Cody, Newcastle got the better of the Warriors despite suffering from fatigue.
“We swam more tired on Saturday, so our times weren’t as good as they were the day before, but everyone was tired after the quad in Powell,” Scribner began. “We placed better on Saturday against those same teams and we swam competitively, so that was great to see.”
Coming off their performance over the weekend, Scribner noted that what his swimmers needed to work on in the coming weeks is getting in better condition in order to see the improvements needed to reach the qualifying marks. 
“This group of boys has been the same for the last four years in that when they get in the water, they are very competitive and swim really hard against other teams,” Scribner nodded. “You can look at some of their places to see that they raced really well this weekend, so we just need to get in better shape to cut our time a little more.”
This week, the Dogies were scheduled to host a meet on Friday and then the Newcastle Invitational on Saturday. However, teams who were supposed to attend opted to go to Riverton. As such, the Dogies attended a quadrangular in Sheridan on Tuesday, and will go to Casper for an invitational on Saturday.