Stephen R. Sylvanie / Special to the Home News
The competition pool of the Henderson Multigenerational Center is packed with swimmers, ages 11 to 14, warming up for the second half of the 22nd annual Desert Invitational Swim Meet on Aug. 30.
Thursday, Sept. 11, 2008 | midnight
Alexa Aguilera, 12, top left, and Maddie Lipkowitz, 12, shout encouragement to Natalie Lipkowitz, 16, as she kicks off the wall while competing in the 100-meter butterfly during the 22nd annual Desert Invitational at the Henderson Multigenerational Center.
The short-course season is officially under way for the Boulder City-Henderson Heatwave swimming team.
The Desert Invitational meet at the Henderson Multigenerational Center Aug. 30 marked the first meet of the new season and saw a number of Heatwave swimmers reap the benefits of their hard work during the long-course season.
"Most of our team swam well," Heatwave coach Ryan Swift said. "We had a really good long-course season — the kids dropped a lot of time — so now they're all building off of that and beating their old times from the last meet of (last year's) short-course season."
The long-course season, which runs roughly five months during the summer, uses a 50-yard pool while the seven-month short-course season uses the traditional 25-yard pool.
Heatwave head coach Mike Polk said the invitational, which drew 406 mostly local swimmers, is designed to ease the team back into a competitive atmosphere.
"It's a smaller meet with shorter races just to get kids back into racing again," Polk said. "They're all excited to swim again with the Olympics having just ended. There's no pressure, just back to pure racing, and we had some very good swims."
Polk pointed to 12-year-old Barbara and Hank Greenspun Middle School student Carter Friedrich, who dominated the meet by winning the 50 freestyle (26 seconds), 50 butterfly (:27) and 50 breaststroke (:34) while taking second place in the 100 individual medley (1:07). Available race times were rounded to the nearest second.
"I didn't expect to do that well because I didn't feel like I was swimming all that well in practice," Carter said. "But I came to practice every day and I train hard, so I think that helped. "
Swift said 10-year-old Liam Wetzel also had a strong meet, dropping a combined 29 seconds in five events. Liam placed in the top three in the 50 fly (:33), 50 backstroke (:36), 50 breast (:38), 50 free (:30) and 100 IM (1:13).
"Now we're just getting back to fundamentals," Swift said. "It's early in the season still, so we're going to focus more on swimming well rather than getting big yardage. We're doing stroke work and stuff like that. We're coming along."
The Heatwave are preparing for the Desert Storm September Meet at the Multigenerational Center from Sept. 19 to 21.
Jared Harmon can be reached at 990-8922 or [email protected].
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