Sweet Home hosted Cascade, Madras and Philomath Friday in a swim meet that turned out to be a showcase for the Huskies.
Cascade’s and Madras’ boys were expected to provide a challenge for Sweet Home’s, but the Huskies responded with 13 personal bests, some “crazy swims,” as Coach A Jay Bronson put it.
Sweet Home finished with 99 points to 74 from Cascade and 71 from Philomath. Madras trailed with 35.
“We performed better than I thought we would right now,” Bronson said. “Right now, we’re supposed to be hurting, not swimming our greatest because we’re going through the hardest part of our training. We had a lot of best times all around.”
The girls posted 15 PRs, including a big one from Rylee Markell in the 100 Breaststroke, in which she clocked 1:21.10 to place second behind teammate Kristin Sautel.
“Rylee’s bee stuck at 1:23, 1:24 for the last couple of years, so that was a big one,” Bronson said.
Sautel was a double winner for the girls, taking the 100 Breaststroke and the 100 Butterfly.
Breeza Rodriguez also won two races, the 50 and 100 freestyles, and Daisy Lalonde added a win in the 200 Individual Medley. The girls also won all three relays to out-point second-place Philomath 140-102.
Arman Marble and Shayne Schuster had big days on the boys side, PR’ing in all four of their events, including the Medley Relay and 200 Freestyle Relay, which the boys won.
Marble won the 200 Freestyle, and Schuster the 500 Freestyle, while RJ Abbott added a win in the 100 Freestyle.
Up next are Marist and Newport, at 4 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 28.
Bronson said the Huskies have back-loaded their schedule, with some of the toughest competition coming last.
“Newport is one of the best girls teams in the state and Marist won the district last year on the guys’ side,” he said. “We’ll definitely have some races. The kids have been out-performing our expectations.”
See more photos in our online gallery.