MG swimmers compete at Zanesville

The Mount Gilead high school swim team trav­eled to Zanesville Sat­ur­day, Jan. 12, to com­pete in the West Musk­ingum Tor­nado Invitational.

This is the sec­ond year the team was invited to par­tic­i­pate in the 11-team meet. While most of the teams were from the Lick­ing and Musk­ingum County area, oth­ers like MG and Portsmouth Notre Dame trav­eled sev­eral hours.

“It is far away, but it is a good meet for us,” said coach Brad Snow. “Most of the teams are in the same sit­u­a­tion we are of hav­ing to share pool time. It is a pos­i­tive expe­ri­ence for the team to find them­selves more evenly matched than in some meets we attend.”

Over­all, Mount Gilead placed third of eleven teams. The women actu­ally led the meet right down to the last relay, ulti­mately com­ing in sec­ond only to Athens High School. Senior Kara Gross­man tied for high point swim­mer of the meet as she scored first in her 50 free and 100 breast­stroke events and was part of the win­ning 200 med­ley and free relays.

Fin­ish­ing in the top three for the Indi­ans: the 200 med­ley and free relays (Elly Herr, Gross­man, Bri­anna Snow and Jenny Hub­schman); Elly Herr in the 200 IM and Bri­anna Snow in the 100 fly.

Also bring­ing in points were the 200 med­ley relay ‘B’, (Tay­lor Clark, Gen­e­sis Rocks, Kendrea Ward and Court­ney West); Herr in the 500 free, Snow in the 200 free, Ward in the 200 IM, Erika Stevens in the 200 IM and 100 fly, Court­ney West in the 100 Breast, the 200 free relay ‘B’ (Rocks, Jade Trim­mer, Ward and West), Jenny Hub­schman in the 100 back­stroke and the 400 free relay (Ward, Rocks, Trim­mer and Haley Barnhart).

The men fin­ished eighth of nine teams, but sev­eral swim­mers turned in great efforts. Scor­ing for the Indi­ans were David Kam­yar and Zach Hel­man in the 200 IM, Jesse Rhode­beck in the 50 free and 100 back, Jacob Barn­hart in the 500 free and the 400 free relay (Barn­hart, Cameron Brown, Andrew McFar­land and Kyle Landes).

First year swim­mer Aaron Evans swam the 500 free for the first time. “Many swim­mers get ner­vous at the thought of this event, but Aaron gave it his best and kept up a nice steady pace,” said Snow.

The meet wrapped up with some non-scoring co-ed relays and then the team headed to Tom’s Ice Cream Bowl — a fun Zanesville land­mark that they dis­cov­ered last year. Accord­ing to assis­tant Melissa Barn­hart, “Now that we have gone twice, it is a tra­di­tion.” For many of the swim­mers and par­ents, it made the long drive worth the wait!

The team will travel next to Ada on Jan. 26, fol­lowed by the County Meet held Jan. 30 at the Mar­ion YMCA.

Accord­ing to Coach Snow, “This is the clos­est thing we have to an MOAC cham­pi­onship — we encour­age the com­mu­nity to come out and sup­port the team.”

Posted by Rob Hamilton on Jan 23 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.