Swimmers compete in meets

The Sisters swim team competed at Sweet Home on Friday, January 30, against the Sweet Home Huskies and the Stayton Eagles, and on Saturday, they competed in the KROC Blanchet Invitational against Blanchet Catholic, Salem Academy, Junction City, Taft, Scappoose, Cascade and Molalla.

Sweet Home was considered a warm-up for the Blanchet Invitational. The Outlaws started the weekend with half of their swimmers sick and out of the pool for various reasons, which made for a rough meet on Friday.

On Saturday, though, the Outlaws had an outstanding meet. The girls team placed second overall and the boys placed sixth. The entire team placed third behind Blanchet Catholic and Salem Academy. It is always a tough challenge for the Outlaws to compete against some of the larger, private schools.

The girls 200-yard freestyle relay (Brooke Knirk, Mary Stewart, Madelyn Zadow and Emily Christen) came in first, seven seconds ahead of Salem Academy with a time of 1:50.49. On the boys side, the relay team (Alex Cyrus, Shawn Horton, Will Werts and Jonathan Luz) came in fourth with a time of 1:48.03.

Both teams also did exceptionally well in the 400-yard freestyle relays. The girls A relay (Knirk, Stewart, Zadow and Christen) came in second with a time of 4:16.73. The girls B relay (Hannah Stuwe, Anna Bartlett, Maddi Boettner and Hawley Harrer) also competed in this event and came in sixth with a time of 4:41.92. The boys (Werts, Horton, Cyrus and Luz) swam to a third-place finish and a time of 4:05.93.

There were several other standout performances at the meet. Boettner swam in the 200-yard freestyle and the 200-yard individual medley. Maddi shaved off five seconds in the 200-yard freestyle for a seventh-place finish (2:30.19) just ahead of Knirk at 2:31.26. Boettner took fifth in the 200-yard intermediate medley, and amazed the entire team when she finished with a 17-second personal-record time of 2:58.54.

Stuwe had a surprise finish in the 100-yard butterfly with a seven-second drop for a time of 1:31.97. She also swam a split on the 400-yard freestyle relay which was comparable to the A relay swimmers.

Werts had a great day, and dropped time from his 100-yard freestyle. Will started the day at 1:07.80 and dropped two seconds for a 1:05.13 in his individual 100-yard freestyle, and then dropped again for a 1:04.01 split on the boys 400-yard freestyle relay.

The B 200-yard girls medley relay (Harrer, Bartlett, Boettner, Stuwe) placed fifth overall with a time of 2:20.77.

The Outlaws were to swim in their last meet prior to districts in Redmond on Tuesday, February 3, and compete against both Redmond and Ridgeview.

"We are up against club swimmers on other teams that compete together year-round and are physically much stronger than us," Coach Brittany Morioka said. "If we all get our heads in the game, then we have a fighting chance. At the end though, it is important to realize, especially in swimming, that we have a dire need for a community-supported club team and pool in Sisters. Other teams just have such a huge advantage when it comes to this."