Over the weekend of Aug. 24 -25, swimmers from throughout Arizona came to compete in the San Manuel August No Time Standard Meet.
The meet was a USA Swimming sanctioned meet in which any swimmer who is registered with USA Swimming could compete. There were no qualifying times (No Time Standard) to enter this meet. Swimmers participate in a meet like this show improvement in events and to obtain qualifying times for other meets like Regional or State Championships.
The San Manuel Sea Lions hosted the meet and had 15 swimmers compete. Swim Neptune from the Phoenix Metro area, Flying Fish from Oro Valley, and Monsoon Swim Club from Tucson brought teams to take part in the meet. The meet was swam in the Long Course Meters (50 meter direction) of the San Manuel Pool. Team scores were not kept but each individual race was competitive.
Sea Lion swimmers had some great swims. Evan Apuron (10) and Tabitha Kellam (10) both won five events at the meet, showing that the Sea Lions have some great 10 year old and under swimmers on both the boys and girls side. Evan won the 200 Freestyle, 50 Butterfly, 1500 Freestyle, 100 Freestyle, and 800 Freestyle. Tabitha won the 200 Freestyle, 1500 Freestyle, 200 Individual Medley, 200 Backstroke, and 800 Freestyle.
Other experienced swimmers won some races. Darien Apuron (12) won the 50 Backstroke and the 100 Butterfly. Gianna Sweeney won the 50 Butterfly, 200 Individual Medley, and the 50 Breaststroke. Riley Stewart (9) won the 200 Breaststroke and the 200 Backstroke.
Several swimmers participated in their first USA Swimming sanctioned meet. Briana Castellanos (9), Joey Castellanos (8), Rocky Andrade (8), Ben Fister (8), Nate Fister (11) and Jayden Smith (11) all did well in competition and swam some great times. Head Coach Alex Gort was impressed with the fact that Rianna Estrada (9) and Andres Valenzuela (11) swam so well that they each won a race at their first meet. Rianna won the 50 Backstroke and Andres won the 50 Breaststroke.
Will Newman (13), who lives in San Manuel and swims and competes with the Flying Fish in Oro Valley, showed he has what it takes to win a few tough races in his home pool. Will won the 200 Butterfly and the 400 Freestyle.
The Sea Lions hosted the swim meet, but it was only possible with help from the San Manuel High School Swim Team, the Sycamore Canyon Academy and volunteers from throughout the community. Visiting teams were impressed with the small town hospitality and plan to make swim meets in San Manuel part of their schedule in the future.