The Yorkton Speed Swim Club wrapped up their season with a competition in Moose Jaw recently. The club competed at the 44th Annual Summerfest Invitational Meet at the Phyllis Dewar Outdoor Pool.Coach Ashley Benko had 10 swimmers attend the meet with her.
Veteran swimmers Kathryn Goulden-Madden and Lindsey Schmidt lead the medal count for the club.Each swimmer had six top three finishes. Kathryn claimed the gold medal in the 100m Free and 200m individual medley events.
She also captured silver medals in the 50m Free, 50m Back, 100m Back and 50m Butterfly events.Schmidt who also swam a solid meet, had second place finishes in the 50m Freestyle, 50m Breaststroke, 100m and 200m Breaststroke.She rounded out her top three finishes with bronze medals in the 200m Free and 50m Butterfly events.Both swimmers were competing in the 14 and under category.
Top three finishes were turned in by Jillian Just, Jennifer Haczkewicz and Kelsey Haczkewicz who competed in the 11 and under category.Jillian Just topped the podium, finishing first in the 100m Breaststroke event.
Jennifer Haczkewicz claimed first place in the 50m Backstroke.She also added third place finishes in the 50m Free and 200m Back to end her impressive season.Kelsey Haczkewicz climbed onto the podium three times with three third place finishes in the 50m Freestyle, 50m Breaststroke, and 100m Breaststroke events.
While coach Benko was obviously pleased with all of the top three finishes, she was quick to praise who she called were the, "movers and shakers of the meet from the Yorkton Club."
"We had some kids come up with incredible efforts at this meet shaving a lot of time off of their previous best posted times," she explained.
Brandon Nord, an eight-year-old swimmer took one minute or more off of all his best times in all four of his races. Jacob Baker (100m Free) and Matthew Todas (400m Free) each chopped 13 seconds from their previous best times. Emma Just swam the 100m Free 15 seconds faster than her previous best.Alexandria Flaman improved her time in the 100m Free by five seconds.
"Improving your race time in an outdoor meet is generally unheard of in swimming" stated Benko. "It's tough to swim faster outdoors, because the sun, wind, and even the crowd being so close to the pool can serve to distract and even disorient the swimmers," added the coach.
Jillian Just, Flaman, and the two Haczkewicz twins ended off the meet competing in the 200 Medley Relay.The young ladies competed in an age-class higher than usual and showed the bigger city clubs from Regina, Saskatoon, Moose Jaw and Prince Albert that they will be a force to be reckoned with in the future.The Yorkton crew staged a valiant battle finishing fourth against the older girls.The Yorkton Speed Swimming Club will start training again in the fall.
The club offers competitive as well as non-competitive swimming, plus the very popular, "I Can Swim Lessons."
Information about any or all of these programs can be picked up at the City-Wide Registration Night in September.
