Top-eights for the Sharks
Aryssah Stankevitsch
Times Reporter
The Strathmore Swim Sharks traveled to Lethbridge from May 3-4 with a spectacular finish at the Senior Meet – the club earned 52 top-eight finishes, gaining confidence for upcoming Alberta Summer Games Trials.
Rayanne Laycock, Megan Mertz, Marina Laycraft, Tamara Adamschek, Olivia Smail, Kate Doucette, Liam Schoepp and Boris Kuljanin also all finished within the top three in at least one of their events. Twenty-six swimmers attended from the Swim Sharks, participating in up to seven events – from 50 m up to 800 m.
“This was certainly a really successful meet for us,” Coach Jen Mertz said. “We use this as a big team building meet as well, because it is such a hard meet. There are so many races in a small amount of time. Our goal is to have fun and enjoy your teammates, and be proud of just working really hard.”
The same weekend, the juniors finished up their season at the Killarney Meet in Calgary. Similarly, the Swim Sharks had 17 top-eight finishers.
Faith Fletcher finished with gold in two of her events, while Cayley Boschee finished top three in all of her events, and Kamaya Lovig earned a meet qualifying time for the 100 m.
This was the juniors’ final event of the year – and their first two-day meet.
“It challenges them to do a bit of a longer event,” Mertz said. “Not all of them will move on to senior meets, but it is getting them prepared for what a senior meet might look like.”
One of the successes of the juniors’ Killarney meet was the high attention paid to the guidelines of swimming.
“At every event, there are a lot of rules involved in racing,” Mertz said. “We look at all the disqualifications, and if we’ve done our job, for a few swimmers, not having a disqualification at all is huge.”
The seniors begin Alberta Summer Games Trials in Canmore at the beginning of June, and, should they qualify (for a maximum of four events), will compete in the July event in Airdrie.
The Swim Sharks will celebrate their season with an awards night on May 28.