The Yorkton Storm Speed Swim team joined seven other swim teams from across the province at the 2014 Prairie Cup Swim Meet in Regina over the Christmas break.
Head coach Ashley Benko was ecstatic with the teams’ results, “every swimmer in attendance at the event took time off of their races,” offered Benko on the strong performances of the Yorkton swimmers.
In fact five Yorkton swimmers swam their way into the top three at the meet. Fourteen-year-old Jacob Baker led the way for the Yorkton swimmers with a first place finish in the 100m Breastroke. He also had two second place finishes in the 100m Freestyle and the 100m Breastroke and recorded ‘A’ times in his two second place races, assuring his spot at ‘A’ Provincials in Moose Jaw later this season.
Baker has already recorded an “AA” qualifying him for Man-Sask.
Cassidy Flasch, 12, recorded two third place finishes in the 50m Freestyle and 100m Backstroke. Flasch swam an “AA” time in her backstroke event and ‘A’ times in each of her other five events. She will also be attending both ‘A’ Provincials and the Man-Sask Meet.
Nine-year-old Matlyn Bulych finished third in the 200m Freestyle event. Bulych also recorded ‘A’ times in the 50m Freestyle, 50m Breaststroke, and 100m Breaststroke while fellow nine-year-old Ella Kozak swam an ‘A’ time in the 200m Individual Medley event enroot to a third place finish.
Tia Slowski, 14, swam an ‘A’ time in the 100m Breaststroke event.
Fifteen-year-old Jennifer Haczkewicz finished out the YSSC trips to the podium with a third place finish in the 100m Backstroke. Haczkewicz continued to rewrite the Yorkton record book this season. She broke five club records at this meet.
She erased her old marks set in the 50m and 100m Freestyle events at the last swim meet. She then went on to set new records in the 200m Freestyle, 100m and 50m Backstroke events.
All three new marks were formerly held by Danielle Ozirny and were set in 1997.
“Jen has been enjoying incredible success this season,” mentioned Benko, adding, “she is now a second away from qualifying for the Western Canadian Championships in the 50m Freestyle and Backstroke events.”
The WCC Meet is usually held in Calgary.
Benko also wanted to highlight the success of Bryant Jones at this Regina meet. Jones swam an ‘A’ time in the 100m Freestyle to qualify for the Provincial Meet, making him the seventh YSSC swimmer to reach the standard. Bryant improved an average of 20.91 seconds in his four races at the meet, making him the winner of the ‘Storm Chaser Award.’
Second place and runner-up for the award was Jacob Baker who had an improvement of 8.38 seconds over his four races. Third place went to Alexandra Poncelet who took 7.24 seconds off on average in her five races at the swim meet. “Poncelet is shining at each meet she attends, and it won’t be long before she swims her first ‘A’ time to qualify for the next level of meets,” said Benko.
Benko ended her comments by saying, “It’s great to see the wholesale improvements by all of our swimmers, and it’s a testament to all of their hard work in training.”
The team is about half way through short course season with their next meets coming up in North Battleford and Saskatoon.
