The Trail Stingrays swim team finished off a great year in the pool by adding to an already prolific medal haul at the BCSSA 53rd Provincial Championship meet on the weekend in Richmond.
Over 400 competitors from eight different regions competed in the event, including 15 from the Stingrays.
“Richmond was a great success for all Stingrays and the Kootenay Region,” said coach Ryan Gurney. “Overall, this is one of the best showings from the Trail Stingrays at the provincials in the past few years.”
The Rays were led by Samme Beatson, Jerome Santiago and Dylan Kormendy.
Beatson finished in the top four of all her individual Division 7 events, collecting two silver, one in the 200 individual medley (I.M) and the other in the 100butterfly, a bronze in the 50 fly and a fourth place finish in the 100 backstroke.
“I was hoping for a medal, and I got one,” says Beatson. “The team did very well, we had a lot of people making finals or consuls (consolation finals) which was great.”
In Div. 1 boys, Kormendy won gold in the 50-metre breastroke, coming from a fourth place seeding in preliminaries and knocking almost two seconds off his time to beat the runner-up by a mere two-hundredths of a second.
Kormendy also made the finals in all his races, placing fourth in the 100 I.M., sixth in the 50 fly, and seventh in the 50 backstroke.
Similarly, Santiago narrowly out-touched a competitor to pick up his first provincial medal, winning a bronze in Div. 4 boys 100-m. breastroke.
Beatson’s 50-m.butterfly race was another close finish with the first and eighth place racers decided by a fingernail with eight-tenths of a second separating them.
The three medals is the Rossland resident’s best performance at a provincial meet but more than anything, she was happy to improve on her times.
“That’s definitely a priority for me . . . actually I swam all personal bests for this season,” she said - including shaving five seconds off her I.M. time.
Stingrays results:
Kayla Fraser - Div 2 Girls - 11th in 100 IM, 15th in 50 Fly, 11th in 50 Breast.
Eden Kormendy - Div 3 Girls - 11th in 50 Fly, 13th in 50 Br, 14th in 100 Fr
Tess Markus - Div 3 Girls - 11th in 50 Fr, 14th in 50 Fly
Jovan Santiago - Div 3 Boys - 11th in 50 Fr
Martin Gonzalez - Div 4 Boys - 4th in 50 Fly, 8th in 50 Fr, 8th in 100 Bk, 16th in 100 Fr
Jennifer Chung - Div 5 Girls - 6th in 50 Fly, 8th in 100 Br, 10th in 50 Fr, 10th in 100 Fr
Oleg Liferovich - Div 6 Boys - 4th in 100 Fly, 5th in 50 Fly, 9th in 100 Br
Eric Gonzalez - Div 6 Boys - 14th in 50 Fr, 13th in 50 Fly, 13th in 100 Fr
Christine Cook - Div 7 Girls - 13th in 50 Fr, 8th in 100 Fly, 11th in 50 Fly, 6th in 100 Fr
Ian Markus and Timothy Chung also competed.