Gators third among 14 in RVAA City-County meet
SALEM – The Stonegate Swim Club finished third overall and Hidden Valley was third in Division 2 as the Salem YMCA played host to the Roanoke Valley Aquatic Association City-County Swim meet last weekend.
Hunting Hills was the overall champion of the meet with 11,537.6 points, while the Roanoke Country Club was second with 11,108.2. Stonegate was next with 9,880.1 to place third overall among the 14 pools entered. Hidden Valley had 4,745.5 points to place 11th overall and third in Division 2.
Cullen Cash of the Stonegate Swim Club competes in the butterfly event in last weekend's City-County Swim Meet at the Salem YMCA pool. Photo by Jim Devinney
“I was very pleased with our performance,” said Stonegate coach Marianne Fleenor. “Our two most exciting events were the 8-and-under Medley Relay that Stonegate won and the women’s 50 and over 50 free.”
The relay team included Carly Griffith, Nick Lawson, Anna Clare Fleenor, and Miranda Kirtley. In the women’s free Wendy Rotanz not only won, but broke the meet record with a 30.80.
“We had some other great races where our swimmers won 1st place,” said Fleenor. “Nelson Helm was first in the 50 Breast and 100 Free and Blair Burns was first in his 50 Fly and Wendy Rotanz also won her 100 IM and 50 Fly.”
Stonegate had 10 swimmers score in the Gold Division in all their 5 races. They scored the most points overall for the team. Those swimmers included Nelson Helm with 296 points, Rotanz with 298 points, Burns with 290, Allie Criss with 270, Josh Stick with 290, Anna Clare Fleenor with 274, Miranda Kirtley with 276, Carly Griffith with 271.5, Nick Lawson with 290, and Jake Lawson with 277.
Stonegate’s 9 and Up relays scored 7th in both the free relay and medley relay. This relay consisted of Jake Lawson, Maia Foley, Nelson Helm, and London Reinhard.
Cameryn Norris dropped 15 seconds in her 50 Fly and some others who improved their times included Will Hicks (6 and U) in the 25 Back made a Gold time, dropping 18 seconds and scoring 46 points; Chandler Jearls (11 and 12) dropping 15 seconds in his 50 back and 9 seconds in both his 50 Fly and 50 Free to score 47 points this weekend; and Carson Pugh dropping 12 seconds in both his 100 IM and 100 Free, 8 seconds in his 50 back to score a total of 57 points for Stonegate. Jordi Berroteran dropped 35 seconds in his 50 Free and Aaron Peters dropped 20 seconds in his 50 Free.
Hidden Valley fielded a smaller team than in recent years, when the Blue Wave was consistently in Division 1. However, the Wave had some good performances as well.
“Although our numbers were small this weekend, HVCC swimmers made a strong showing,” said coach Becky Guynn.
In the 7-8 division, Elena Lloyd led the age group with gold times in five events. In addition, 7-8’s Daniel Byrnes, Chris Farmer, Emily Allara, Grace Graham and Macy Farmer scored a mix of gold and silver times each.
In the 6 and under division, Graydon Bartlett recorded gold times in all of his events and Hope Smith, Kalei Memmer and Elizabeth Walker were strong contributors.
Hayes Bartlett had all gold times for the 9-10 division and Kaitlyn Westerhold, Emmy Graham and Grace Whitesell earned points for the Blue Wave as well.
Maddie Robinson scored 5 gold times in the 11-12 division and Riley Farmer, Will Pryse and Justin Wright recorded strong silver times. Sarah Hans and Reid Williams challenged in the 13-14 division with gold and silver times and Rachael Wright earned gold times in the 15-16 division.
“We took less than 50 swimmers to City County this year, the smallest team I can remember in my 16 years of swimming for HVCC,” said Guynn. “But I am very proud of how well everyone swam, and not just those who scored gold times but the kids who were dropping ten and twelve seconds from their seed times. We finished 11th at the meet and 3rd in our division for the season, but considering our numbers I think that’s pretty good.”
