Eleven TNT swimmers competed at the Juanita Allington Memorial Swim Meet over the last weekend of February, and six of our swimmers performed in scoring position within individual events. Our two top performers who earned championship swims both finished in 5th place, and included Visalia’s 14-year old Layla Flores who improved nearly eight seconds in the 400 IM to post a time of 4:38.78 after improving over five seconds in the preliminary heats. Her Visalia training partner, and Junior National qualifier, 17-year old Megan Ridenour posted a time of 1:05.74 in the 100 yard breaststroke, and finished 5th in that event. Both swimmers scored in two events, with Layla finishing 16th in the 200 IM (2:14.09), and Megan finishing 12th in the 200 breast (2:25.85).
Thirteen year old Bryan Wong was the only other swimmer with two scoring swims, and he did this with two 14th place finishes, one in the 200 breast where he posted a lifetime best of 2:15.20, and the 100 breast where he swam a time of 1:02.54. Our other scoring swims came from Visalia’s Mackenzie Garza who finished 13th in the 50 free (24.57), Brett Wong who finished 18th in the 50 free (22.56), and Selma’s Jonas Huckabay who finished 20th in the 1650 freestyle (17:58.97).
Other finalist included Visalia’s Janessa Bringe (100 fly & 200 IM), Peyton Costa (200 back, 400 IM, 100 back, & 100 breast), and Bryce Wong (100 back). Selma’s Jackson Huckabay had his highest finish as 43rd in the 200 IM, while 12-year old Ava Olson finished 85th in the 200 IM as our youngest competitor at the senior-level meet.