Swimmers fight fatigue

The Lady Dogie swim team made the long haul to Worland last Friday for a quinquangular meet and then went on to Powell for an invitational meet on Saturday. Head coach Doug Scribner admitted that his team swam a little tired over the course of the two days, however there were still some improvements and good things to take away from the weekend.

“I don’t know if we were tired because we didn’t practice on Monday, because the same thing happened to us last year. It was like we just didn’t get going,” Scribner explained. “We also had a harder week of practice, so we didn’t see the improvements like we did last week, which were pretty significant.”

Swimmers were also tasked with taking on some new and different events, as Scribner is working through entering each of his athletes in all of the events in order to see what each may or may not do well in.

Lydia Anderson had a good weekend and did not appear to swim tired. She won the 50 Freestyle and got second in the 100 Freestyle, dropping time in both to finish under 4A qualifying time. She also improved her 100 Breaststroke time by two seconds over last year.

“Lydia does not like the breaststroke,” Scribner laughed. “But she’s competitive and has pretty good technique, so she did well despite not liking it.” 

Raeleigh Shipp swam the 200 IM for the first, and potentially last time of the season, and according to Scribner did well. 

“It will probably be the only time she swims the breaststroke this year, because it bothers her hip,” he explained. “She dropped time from last year, however, and the 50 yards of breaststroke didn’t bother her hip. She took it easy, but her breaststroke is good enough that she can take it a little slower and not lose too much time.” 

Rebekah Olson dropped time in the 50 Free on Saturday, matching her best time in that event from last year. She also had a good relay split, while Haley Beastrom was on her best time in the backstroke, and dropped almost a second in the breaststroke on Saturday after doing some work on her technique in that event.

Veronica Ayres came to the team after the start of the year, but had reached her 10 practices so was able to compete for the first time last weekend. She is a freshman and new to swimming, but according to Scribner she competed and had a good start. 

“She’s excited and we’re going to try to learn a new stroke this week. Right now she knows the freestyle and the backstroke so she competed in those events,” he said. “She is improving really quickly. She learned two strokes and didn’t DQ in either, so that was great to see.”

The 200 Free Relay team of Jaydenn Nelson, Anderson, Kyah Miller, Shipp improved three seconds from their time last week. Then on Saturday, Scribner changed the line-up to Shipp, Olson, Anderson and Beastrom, and that team dropped another four seconds to finish with a time of 2:03.24. 

“Our 50-yard freestyle is improving so they had some really good times on the 200 Free,” Scribner reported. “Overall, the team is doing well this year. Looking at points scored, we’ve had some pretty similar meets. We scored 121 points last week in Cody and then scored 132 points in Worland, so that’s great.” 

Individually, Anderson is up to 130 points, Shipp has scored 86, Ruth Rose is at 80, Beastrom has scored a little more this year and Olson is about double the points she was at last season. 

This weekend is the team’s only home meet. Friday will be either a dual with Cheyenne South or a triangular with South and Douglas beginning at 4 p.m. Then on Saturday is the Newcastle Invitational where Scribner expects to see South, Douglas and Buffalo with action beginning at 10 a.m.