Lucas Punkari
For the six members of the Fort Frances Aquanauts who competed at the annual Prairie Winter Invitational meet in Winnipeg, it was a weekend where they left all of their previous best times in the dust.
Donovan Taylor, Adam Stromberg, Levi Rittau, Lyndsi Jo Wilson, Regan Danylchuk, and Kaela Lowey all set personal bests, with some of them smashing through by more than a second.
“It was beyond any expectations I had for the guys going into the meet,” Aquanauts’ head coach Dawnn Taylor enthused.
“I was just hoping for a few best times from the swimmers, but instead we got a lot of those personal best times and a few results that I didn’t plan on,” she noted.
Two swimmers who had strong meets were Wilson, who set best times in five of her six events in the female 13-14 age category, and Lowey, who was six-for-six in personal bests in the female 15-and-over division.
“Out of my swims, I really liked my 50m butterfly [36.81 and 43rd place] and my 200m individual medley [2:52.32 and 34th place] as I was able to preform well and I was also able to stay running strong,” Wilson recalled.
“For me, I was most proud of my 100m freestyle [1:17.30 and 58th place] and my 100m breaststroke [1:30.73 and 28th place] as those were the ones I felt I improved the most on as I took a couple of seconds off of the times in those races,” said Lowey.
Wilson’s best result was 25th place (37.02) in the 50m backstroke while Lowey’s top showing was 22nd in the 50m breaststroke (41.37).
Rounding out the local female contingent was Danylchuk, who had six personal best times and a high finish of 16th in the 50m backstroke (35.12).
Among the boys, Rittau and Stromberg both cracked the one-minute barrier in the male 13-14 100m freestyle, which was something Rittau was very excited about.
“When I touched the wall and looked up at the scoreboard and saw my time [59.79], I was so excited that I started to yell out, ‘Yes, I finally did it,’” he recalled.
“I think the biggest change for me this time around was that I got my turns to go a lot better, and I didn’t have any major issues with my stroke itself.
“However, Adam kind of blew me away with his time [58.45] so I have a little bit of extra competition to try and catch up with him,” Rittau smiled.
Rittau finished the weekend with eight personal bests and a high finish of seventh in both the 50m and 100m fly finals (29.59 and 1:08.85).
Stromberg, meanwhile, set seven personal bests and had a high finish of sixth in the 50m free (26.66).
The third male Aquanaut at the meet was Donovan Taylor, who garnered four personal bests during the weekend along with a first-place showing in the 200m fly (2:07.97).
Taylor also had a second-place showing in the 100m fly and four third-place results (100m and 200m backstroke, and 200m and 400m I.M.)
While the competitive schedule for the Aquanauts now takes a break until the regional championships, slated for the end of January in Thunder Bay, team members will be busy during the next few weeks in preparation for that event.
“It might seem that we have a long time off, with a chance at some rest, before that meet,” noted Dawnn Taylor.
“But when you look at it, it really isn’t,” she added.
