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The Estevan Golden Eels attended their first meet of the season and came home with some promising results.
At the Melville meet, individual team members collected a combined five golds, one silver and four bronze medals, placing the team in second place behind Weyburn and beating Regina.
Placing contestants in both male and female categories from the seven and eight-year-old competition to the 18-and-over, coach Erin Wilson said her team's strengths lied most notably in their endurance. She chalks that up to the team training for most of the last two months.
"We've been lucky. We've been able to be in the water since the beginning of May," she said. "Compared to a lot of other clubs, especially this year, that is not typical. So we've been blessed. Our strengths lie with the endurance that some of the kids have already been able to build up."
She added that that is something the team will continue to build on as the season progresses.
For some of the swimmers, this was their first competitive meet, and Wilson said it was her job to give some guidance to those who were new to the competition.
"We always try to let them know what's coming up and expected. Then we review the race and make sure they're improving and can do better for the next one."
With the season taking off, she said the two main focuses of the club this year are to have fun and to improve.
"We want to make sure that they're improving so that every meet that they get to, they can see some improvement, whether it's from the skill itself or the times they end up meeting."
The first meet is a great place to see where each individual swimmer is and they can get a bit of an idea of what they want to do over the course of the month-long season. She said however, that they didn't get as many swimmers as they wanted for the first meet, so as a club, she thought it was difficult to get a clear view of where the team really did stack up.
Collecting gold medals were Josh Wilson, in the seven-and-eight boys' division; Payten Wilson, in the nine-and-10 girls; Lanelle Bilokraly, in 11-and-12 girls; Auriel Bell, in 13-and-14 girls; and Akeela Jundt, who also coaches, in the 18-and-over category. Both Bilokraly and Payten placed first in each of their five races.
Earning a silver place finish was Garret Ross in the 11-and-12 boys.
Bronze medals went to Logan Chernoff, in nine-and-10 boys; Alyssa Wieting, in 11-and-12 girls; Ryan Wieting, in 13-and-14 boys; and Preston Bilokraly in the 15-to-17 division.
The next meet is this Saturday in Swift Current, with another meet Sunday in Assiniboia. They will head to competitions each weekend from now until the season's end at provincials in Humboldt on July 31. Estevan will play host to their own meet on July 9.
