The SaddleBrooke Swimmers scored very well at the Misty Hyman Classic.
Terese Butler
For the third time in three years the SaddleBrooke Swim Club (SSC) has won the Arizona Short Course Yardage State and Regional Swim Meet. The swim meet, which is sanctioned by the United States Masters Swimming Association, was held at the spectacular Oro Valley Aquatic Center. The event was co-hosted by the Aquatic Center, the SSC and FAST, an Oro Valley swim club. About 200 swimmers from clubs located throughout Arizona, California and New Mexico attended the meet.
The three day event, which ran from April 10 through April 12 of this year, was a testament to the strength and dedication of the team’s members. The SSC fielded 52 swimmers for the event and amassed 8,063 points. Second place finishers, The Ford Aquatics Club, finished a distant second with 6,290 points. More than one-third of all points awarded at the meet were won by SSC swimmers through individual events and team relays.
During the course of the meet each swimmer could swim up to eight individual events and gain points for the place they finished in the event with first place earning 20 points. At the end of the meet each person’s points are totaled and the swimmer with the most points in their age group is honored as the high point winner. Special congratulations to four of the team’s swimmers: Jill Fritz, Susan Moss-Fuller, Doug Springer and Glen Tewksbury for winning the high point series in their age groups. In fact, Springer and Tewksbury each won every event they swam and earned a perfect score of 160!
The team’s high point winners were not the only club members to have a good meet. You can always tell when someone has had a good race because as they exit the pool they are looking at the scoreboard to see their finish time and when you see a big smile or a thumbs up, you can be sure that they have bettered their time in that event. A total of 51 Personal Best times were recorded by team members so, as you can imagine, there were a lot of smiles going around.
Special thanks go to Doug Springer, the coach of the SSC, for the success of the club. Coach Springer donates five mornings a week, from October through May, to encourage all levels of swimmers to swim to their individual potential. This year Springer marks his fiftieth year of swim coaching! During his tenure he has coached all levels of swimmers, from local YMCA swimmers, to collegiate teams, to the U.S. team to the Pan American games. His dedication to the sport, but more importantly, to the individuals who swim the sport, is inspiring. This year’s Three-Peat performance by the team is its way of thanking him for all of his dedication to all of its members.
Special thanks also to the Digital Imagery Group of SaddleBrooke for their support in photographing this event. While no swimmer will say it out loud, you know when they see a picture of themselves swimming they are thinking, “There I am!”