Aquanauts, Cyclones set for meet

One team will welcome back one of its stars while the other will join a constellation of “Starz.”
The Fort Frances Aquanauts and Fort Frances Cyclones will be part of the field making waves at the Division II swimming championships this weekend in Thunder Bay.
For the Aquanauts, it will resemble homecoming weekend as former team member Jeff Plumridge, now an accomplished swimmer for the Guelph Gryphons, will rejoin the squad where he first got his competitive feet wet.
“It’s exciting for our swimmers,” said Aquanauts coach Roman Ramirez. “Jeff’s had some very good times at the university level.
“To have him here for the meet is going to encourage the younger kids, and help them know that the opportunity is there for them to go to college and swim themselves one day,” he added.
The Aquanauts are ranked 13th in the 16-team meet, which will feature the heats being held in a short course (25-m) pool while the finals will be swam in the long-course (50-m) pool.
“I don’t think it will be a tough adjustment for them,” said Ramirez. “They’ve had to swim in both 25- and 50-metre pools before, so they’ll be fine.”
Besides trying to set personal bests and see where they fit among the highest calibre of competition they’ve seen this season, the Division II championships also will give those Aquanauts on the cusp of qualifying for two major meets later this year a chance to make their reservations.
Coming of their performance at the opening long-course meet of the season April 11-13 in Calgary, Heather and Rachel Dutton are the first two team members to meet qualifying standards for the upcoming Man.-Sask. long course meet and the junior provincial long course championships.
“I have no predictions how many more of our swimmers will qualify,” said Ramirez. “Three or four are really close, but it all depends on the swimmer and their performance on that certain day.”
< *c>Starz aligned
Meanwhile, the Cyclones will submit to the philosophy of strength in numbers as their seven entrants in the Division II meet will join forces with the Goldfins from Red Lake, Nakokita (Atikokan), and the Narwhals of Thunder Bay to form the Northwestern Ontario Starz.
With teams allowed to bring as many as 30 swimmers to the meet, the plan was to combine the smaller clubs into one larger team to give them a better chance to succeed as a collective unit.
“It will strengthen our ties with the other clubs,” said Cyclones head coach Debbie Murray, who will serve as an assistant on the Starz staff, which will be led by Narwhals coach David A. Iwanyszyn.
“Teaming up like this gives us the ability to help each other reach our goals,” she added. “We want to take the opportunity and make the best of it.”
The Starz are ranked at the bottom of the pack for this weekend’s meet, but Murray said results are secondary to both the education her swimmers will gain at such a high-level meet as well as the chance for social interaction with their peers.
“I always encourage our kids when we go to a meet to watch other swimmers and get tips and have little discussions with them about how they go through a meet,” said Murray.
“These things are important to help them develop.
“They also make friends very easily, and look forward to seeing these people every time another meet comes along that they’ll all be at together,” she added.
While the Cyclones haven’t competed since the regional championships here back in February, Murray doesn’t consider the layoff as something that will hamper her swimmers.
“To them, every event is a huge event,” she remarked. “We’ve had lots of practice time to fill in the gap. We just want our kids to swim their best, achieve some best times, and learn more about the next level of competition.
“Most of these kids haven’t swam in a complex like Thunder Bay’s before,” she added. “So that will only serve to enhance the excitement for them.”
The Cyclones are slated to race in the less-challenging Division III next year as part of their second season of existence, but for Murray, it’s still a step in the right direction.
“The development of our swimmers for our first year as a club has been phenomenal,” she noted. “To even be invited to something like the Division II meet is a great experience.
“We expect will be right there [near the top of Division III],” she added. “But that’s not why we go to the meets. We want to show what sports and sportsmanship is all about.”