I was very impressed with Brooklyn Shelley's 100BR, in which she took off 5 seconds from her previous best and looked very strong and in control. Her and Britney Dortona had the best splitting on any events during the day.
AJ Tarczy equaled his best short course time in his 200BK and placed 11th overall with very quick walls.
50FR sswimming was very fast but the fundamentals were a little rough. It seemed like our swimmers were very eager to look at the giant Etobicoke score board, as many of the moved their heads up in that direction before they had actually touched the wall. Overall though, 50FR yielded some very good results: Bronte McMaster (31.30) finished 12th/55, Clancy Harris, also with a best time finished in the top 45 in the 13 year old age category. Kelly Smith and Olivia Fong were 22nd and 52nd in the 14 year old age category.
The girls 13-14 relay finished up the day in 20th place with many teams such as Milton, Gators, and Etobicoke scratching teams. There were 9 team scratches overall so our team likely would have beat more, had they swum, as the girls did a great job (over 3 seconds faster than we expected them to go).
The afternoon session saw Britney Dortona JUST sneak under the provincial prereq time in 400IM and shed a full 3.5 seconds in her 200FR. Olivia Fong and Britney represented Saturday's relay team and accepted the medals on Emma and Aysia's behalf (see below). Michael Jans and Quinn Jaggard swim very aggressive, smart races despite being slightly over their best times. Bjoern-Ole Schrader also placed 16th in 400IM.
HHBF finished 25th at this meet (Milton Marlins finished 26th for any of you keeping track of how many times we beat them this season) and I feel that we did what we went to do. It is unfortunate that many schools scheduled trips around this time of year, but I give much credit to those athletes affected for stepping up and racing after being out of the water; after all, they had no choice but to miss training for school. Even after having to miss that time, they were all eager to get back in the water, race, and do everything they could to represent HHBF as best they could. We did very well this past weekend and the HHBF community should be proud of these athletes.
