Wrangell swimmers continue to chip away at their race times, boasting 11 personal bests against Southeast competition on Oct. 11-12.
The Juneau Invitational was the Wolves third meet of the season. And as the season nears its close, head coach Jamie Roberts remains optimistic about her last couple of weeks at the helm of the Wrangell swim program (she is moving out of town this winter). The reason for her optimism? Her swimmers keep getting faster.
Of Wrangell swimmers’ 25 individual events in Juneau, 11 resulted in personal-best times. Better yet, nine of those 11 came from freshmen. Roberts’ emphasis on continued improvement is paying off.
Amura Roher posted personal-best times in every event she competed in. The freshman’s 50-yard freestyle time of 40.48 on the first day of the meet was the quickest she had ever swum the event — for just 24 hours. The next day, Roher shaved a second off her Friday time. Roher also set new personal records in the 100-yard freestyle (1:27.76) and 500-yard freestyle (8:56.05).
Another freshman, Pete Houser, continued to impress with personal record times in both the 50- and 500-yard freestyle with respective times of 48.00 and 1:46.71. Roberts was thrilled by Houser’s performance in Juneau. She attributed much of his success to the freshman’s recent emphasis on technique improvement.
“It can be challenging to execute technical changes because muscle memory tends to creep in when a swimmer gets fatigued during a race,” Roberts said. “The goal is for the endurance training and the technique training to come together; and it did for Pete this weekend.”
Ellee Voltz also set three personal bests over the two days of competition. Johanna Sanford competed in the 50- and 100-yard freestyle but it wasn’t until the 100-yard backstroke that she set a new fastest time of 1:26.52. Kalee Herman competed in the 50-yard freestyle, finishing with a time of 36.59.
Maddy Davies raced in the 200-yard freestyle on both days, though it was her 1:39.30 time in the 100-yard breaststroke that gave her a new best time. Andrei Bardin-Siekawitch cut his 50-yard freestyle time by nearly two seconds between Friday and Saturday. He also clocked a 1:16.37 finish in the 100-yard backstroke.
On the relay side of things, the girls 200-yard freestyle team was comprised of Sanford, Voltz, Roher and Davies. On Friday, they finished with a time of 2:35, 20, before posting a near-identical Saturday time of 2:35.17.
Juneau-Douglas High School — not just the host team but also heavy favorites — won the meet, winning 29 of the 48 events over the course of two days. Wrangell finished in eighth, 35 points behind seventh-place finisher Craig.
Wrangell swimmers rounded out the regular season in Sitka on Oct. 18-19. Southeast championships will take place in Petersburg Nov. 1-2.
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