Six TNT swimmers competed at the second annual South West Age Group Regional (SWAGR) swim meet hosted by California Capital Aquatics in Roseville over the March 16-19 weekend which afforded finals for single-age divisions for the top ten performers from the preliminary heats, and four of our six came away earning a spot in no fewer than three finals within their respective age divisions. Visalia’s thirteen year old Layla Flores came away as the only event champion for TNT, and she did this in the 400 yard IM by improving her preliminary swim by over 20 seconds to a lifetime best of 4:46.53, and moving from 8th to 1st in the event. Layla was also the top overall scoring individual for TNT, earning finals in five of her seven events, thereby also maintaining the largest number of earned finals for the team. Besides the first place finish in the 400 IM, Layla scored 41 points from individual events by also finishing 2nd in the 200 breast (2:33.74) and 2nd in the 200 IM (2:16.38), as well as finishing 4th in the 200 back (2:17.84), and 6th in the 100 breast (1:11.71).
Layla’s training partner in Visalia, Rylee Lord, also earned five second swims for the 13-year old division among her six events entered, her highest finish being a 3rd place in the 100 free where she posted her lifetime best of 56.26. Rylee also improved her 200 freestyle time to a 2:03.87 to finish 4th in that event. She improved four of her six swims, and the improvements included the 6th place finish in the 100 fly after swimming 1:02.66 in the preliminary heats. Rylee finished 7th in the 200 fly (2:22.42), and topped out her finals with a 9th place finish, and time improvement, in the 50 free (26.19).
Our next finalist was Ava Olson who competed in the 11-year old division, and she had top-9 finishes in four of her seven events, earning 29 points in the scoring final, and having her highest place as 4th in the 100 fly where she posted a lifetime best of 1:07.42 in the event. She followed that with a pair of 8th place finishes that included an improvement that exceeded 10 seconds in the 400 IM (5:14.77), and a near four second improvement in the 200 fly (2:25.44) where she posted a new Far Wester cut while on the bottom of the 11-12 age group. Her Sunday held a busy schedule that included the preliminary and final in the 200 fly, but also the 1000 freestyle where her nearly 17-second improvement was enough for a 9th place finish there.
Our remaining finalist was Selma’s 10-year old Sienna Abernathy who posted three final events among her six that she competed in. Sienna’s highest place was in the 100 yard freestyle event where a nearly half second improvement was enough for an 8th place finish there. She followed that swim with a 9th place in the 200 IM where she improved her preliminary swim by over two seconds to a 2:48.35. Her remaining final was in the 50 fly, where she posted a time of 33.28, which was once again faster than her preliminary swim, and enough for a 10th place finish there.
Visalia swimmers Ciara Clarke had her highest finish as 13th in the 50 back (33.56) for the 11-year old division, while Visalia’s Daniel Haley competed in the 13-year old boy’s division and his highest finish was 17th in the 500 free where he posted his lifetime best of 5:30.47.