The Dal Tigers dominated the podium at the UPEI invitational swim meet Jan. 20-21. The women’s team won every event but one and the men’s team finished top three in each event aside from the 400 metre free relay in which Dal was disqualified.
Coach David Fry says a strong result in Charlottetown puts his team in good position ahead of the AUS and CIS championships.
He says swimmers Paige Crowell, Rachel Shin, Molly Wedge and Keishia Mills swam particularly well.
Mills broke the AUS record in the 200 metre breaststroke.
“We’ve been training really hard in practice,” says Mills. “I tried to focus; I knew it was going to be something great.”
At the end of her race, she looked at the clock and saw her record-breaking time.
“It was really exciting,” says Mills.
Mills had been working hard all season towards this goal.
“Hers was one we could see coming,” says Fry. “She’s been within a couple tenths of a second under it twice before so we knew she was going to get under it.”
The men’s team saw strong swims from Kyle Watson, Kit Moran and Dmitry Shulga, but had a disappointing 400 metre freestyle relay.
“One of the swimmers left a little bit early, by little I mean the smallest possible margin. It was one-one-hundredth of a second that they left early,” says Fry. “It wasn’t a blatant false start, but enough to make it illegal.”
Bryan Fumerton was on that relay team.
“It was the third guy that left early,” says Fumerton. “It doesn’t make you feel good, especially when it is someone else’s fault.
“The way we look at it it’s better you learn those things now because it’s not our conference meet or nationals,” says Fry, “So you learn them and learn from them.”
Fumerton says overall it was a good meet, as he explained his team’s domination.
“If you’re in a race with no other people from Dal, you’ll destroy the heat,” Fumerton says, “There is always the odd guy from the other team, but for the longer events I think it’s mostly our team racing each other.”
Dal hosts the AUS championships for both men and women on the weekend of Feb. 10-12.
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