It’s ramp up season for the Foothills Stingrays.
With the end-of-season high-stakes meets on the horizon several young members of the swim club have made the most of qualification events to earn their way to the big dance.
At the CSI Mini Pro meet Luc Tetrault vaulted into the Southern Alberta Provincials with a pair of time standard finishes in the 50m and 100m breaststroke.
“I try to go as far as I can and then get better at it,” Tetrault said. “I remember someone challenging me, some guys from the Cascades who already made it to provincials.
“I needed to beat them.”
At the same event teammate Hailey Thiele turned in two club records in 50m freestyle and 100m backstroke in the under eight age group.
Thiele doubled down on club records with another in the 50m butterfly at the Corral City Classic where Bryair Murphy did the same in the 100m breaststroke.
Brett Harrison used the Corral City meet to qualify for southerns in the 50m freestyle.
The Cascade Swimming International saw Jada Cotnam earn a championship time in the 50m breaststroke to move onto the Summer Championships.
“I was really trying to visualize my race so I can feel like I was swimming it,” Cotnam said. “I had to feel confident because usually I’m more negative going into a race.”
A trip to the Okanagan produced a memorable weekend both individually and in relay.
Montana Dobry, 11, was second overall in the aggregate points in her age group as the picture of consistency all weekend at the Kelowna Aquajets meet.
“I didn’t win every single race, but I came first in a lot of them,” Dobry said. “It’s me training in the pool a lot and also the support of friends because they support you in the races, but also push you to go faster.”
Domenic Griesser booked his ticket to the Summer Championships with breakthrough performances in the 50m and 100m freestyle.
“I won both of my heats and it felt good touching, looking over and seeing people finish after you,” Griesser said. “Keeping my arms wide and going with my fingertips I had to work on that and it really helped.”
Also in Kelowna, Jaden Melton notched his first ever provincial time in the 50m freestyle to move on to southerns.
He teamed up with three Stingrays to set a new club benchmark in the 10 and under boys 4x50m medley relay.
Deon Badenhorst, Mychael Lindenback, Melton and Rory Knox touched the wall in a Stingrays best time of 3:06.42.
“We were down in about fourth place. What I did was try my hardest to bring up some places and get the club record,” said Knox, who finished off the race in the freestyle.
“It’s my second record, but I already got one before that got taken away from me in an hour.”
The busy stretch of the long course season will see the Stingrays compete at the Southern Alberta Provincials, the Summer Championships and Western Championships over the next month.
For more information go to foothillsstingrays.com
