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Alec Newman swims the breast stroke. Jeanine Apuron | Sea Lions
Coach Alec Gort with the Boys 400 Free Relay Team. Jeanine Apuron | Sea Lions
Will Newman, left, placed second in the 200 Individual Medley, proving that size doesn’t matter.
Jeanine Apuron | Sea Lions
Miner swimmers traveled to the Small School Championship Swim Meet held at Phoenix Country Day School in Paradise Valley on Saturday, Oct. 25. Since the Arizona Interscholastic Association reorganized swimming into two divisions in 2010, this meet has been known as the unofficial State Championship Meet for the Small Schools (schools of size 1A, 2A or 3A). Miner swimmers did well finishing with several top eight finishes at the meet.
The Boys Medley Relay team of Will Newman, Taylor Woods, Colbey Stratton, and Robert Sweeney got the ball rolling for the Miners with a sixth place finish in a very talented field. Jacob Christian improved his time in the 200 Freestyle by several seconds to secure an eighth place finish (2:10.98).
It was the Boys 200 Individual Medley that was one of the most anticipated individual races of the day. Four teams had swimmers with faster seed times than the meet record and all were within one second of each other. The Miners had Will Newman, who battled through each of the stroke and finished 0.08 seconds behind the winner to earn the second place medal.
In high school swimming, sprinting is usually dominated by Seniors because of the additional muscle mass boys build between ages 14 and 18, but it was Sophomore Colbey Stratton who made a statement by finishing seventh in the 50 Freestyle.
Taylor Woods swam the 100 Freestyle race of his life to finish eighth place, just narrowly missing the school record.
Will Newman was the favorite in the 500 Freestyle and did not disappoint. He set a new meet record time of 5:11.90 and beat the rest of the field by over 25 yards. Robert Sweeney finished near the front of the pack for a seventh place finish.
Even though the Miners did not have anyone place in the top eight of the Breaststroke, it was noted that the meet record (1:05.47) held by Wayne Newman (set in 2012) was good enough to stand for another year.
The Miners are proud of their 400 Freestyle Relay and one of their primary goals is to improve their qualifying time to make sure they make the cut for the Division II State Championship Meet in November. Colbey Stratton swam the led off leg in school record time of 55.12 (old record of 55.15 was held by Wayne Newman) in what quickly became a three team race. Each Miner swim followed with a personal best time by Taylor Woods, Jacob Christian and Will Newman to finish in third place only a fraction of a second behind the winners. The time of 3:40.08 was five seconds faster than their previous best time and while there are no sure things with over 90 schools trying to qualify for 24 relay spots, Coach Alex Gort seemed confident that the time is good enough to make the trip to Division II State.
The Miner Boys finished in sixth place overall out of the 18 teams and came home with medals in the 400 Free Relay, 200 IM and 500 Free. Coaches were pleased with the way swimmers times are improving. “We had some huge time improvements when it mattered most, and came home with four new school records,” Coach Alex Gort explained.
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