US Masters Swimming, or USMS, has three swim competition seasons: Short Course Yards (SCY), which is swum in a 25 yard pool, Short Course Meters (SCM), swum in a 25 meter pool, and Long Course Meters (LCM), swum in a 50 meter pool. SaddleBrooke Masters, the competitive arm of the SaddleBrooke Swim Club, has achieved great success in the Arizona SCY State Championships by winning the last two state championships. The SaddleBrooke team also won the most recent SCM State Championship which was held in Tempe. A team win in the LCM State Meet would give SaddleBrooke a clean sweep of all three USMS State Championships for 2014—an unprecedented Triple Crown!
However, success in the LCM (Long Course) State Championship competition has eluded SaddleBrooke Masters for two significant reasons. First, the LCM Championship is always held in July and since the bulk of the team, including our coach, is comprised of snowbirds, the team could never achieve the number of competitors that could compete with the larger clubs in the Phoenix and Tucson areas. Second, the LCM competition is held in a 50 meter pool, whereas the SaddleBrooke team trains at DesertView, a 25 yard pool. As the 50 meter events require much more stamina and strength than events covering 25 yards, many swimmers would prefer to avoid the 50 meter swim competitions.
Regardless of the problems, the team decided to focus on this year’s LCM AZ State Meet held at the University of Arizona Campus on July 26 and 27. The team’s summer coaches, Terese Butler, Dave Taylor and Joyce Howard, increased the intensity of the thrice weekly practices and other team members initiated a recruiting effort which produced a team of 20 swimmers. However, the host team, Tucson Ford Aquatics, fielded a stronger team and, as a result, nosed out SaddleBrooke for the 2014 State Championship Trophy.
With a very strong second place team finish, SaddleBrooke swimmers had many notable individual achievements. Carl Marriott, Harold Peter, Susan Moss Fuller and Bev Shulz were high point winners in their respective age groups and Ke Wang, Terese Butler, Susan Dawson Cook, Walt Howland and Dave Taylor were very close seconds in theirs. Gail Thompson, a new team member, won all the Breast Stroke events in her age group (50M, 100M and 200M). The top point scorer of the entire meet was SaddleBrooke’s Bev Shulz. Swimming in eight of the longest, toughest events she finished first in all eight adding significantly to SaddleBrooke’s overall point total.