- By Reed Dewey
- Sports
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The swimmers also achieved over 70 Silver times, allowing them to advance to the next level of competition in those events. With swimmers hitting those new times, the CATS now have between 50-60 youngsters eligible for the Niagara District Silver Championships held in Webster in early February.
The excitement continued into this past weekend with two groups of LCATs representing the team at higher-level competitions in Webster and in Rutgers, NJ. A large group of youngsters traveled to the Rochester area to compete in the Niagara District 14-and-Under GOLD Championship. A smaller group of 8 swimmers competed in the Burgdorff Longcourse Invitational at Rutgers. These individuals continued the trend of personal best swims, hitting over 160 new best times. Among those swims, several swimmers set new club records. Hans Roser, Nicole Heise, Erin McElfresh, Jake Sangren, Nikki Dean, Ryan Nicholson, Sterling Gell and Aaron Mychack all had a hand in new LCAT meter records.
Among those swims, Ryan Nicholson’s performances were exceptional. Ryan’s swims in the 50M Free, 100M Free, 200M Free, 50M Fly, 100M Fly and 200 I.M. were all T16 swims, meaning they rank him among the top sixteen 9-10 year-old male swimmers in the United States in those events. Ryan’s 100M freestyle swim of 1:06.32 not only set a Niagara District record, it also broke the meet record held by world swimming superstar Michael Phelps. Ryan’s 200M free also set a Niagara District record with a time of 2:22.83.
At Webster, our 14-under swimmers in attendance continued the team’s record-setting ways. New short course (yards) records were set by Emily O’Brien, Erin O’Brien, Matt Heise, Kevin Miller and Emma Otto-Moudry. Several other LCATs teamed up to break a few club relay records as well.
The kids have had a great start to the New Year! The team’s next meet is this Saturday in Waverly. That meet will be followed by the Go-The-Distance and Senior Junior Olympics in Webster at the end of the month.
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