Five swimmers compete at sectionals
The Wave Ryder Swim Club wrapped up its short course season last weekend by taking five swimmers to sectionals in Federal Way, Wash.
The athletes are invited to sectionals by meeting a required time in an event during the season. This is the most qualifying swimmers that the club, which is in its fourth year, has ever had. Last year, two qualified and the year before there was just one.
"I'm very excited," said Deidre Loyda, head coach of the Wave Ryder Swim Club. "We are having steady growth and steady improvements for the team."
This was the second year that Emily Sullivan and Jordan Loyda participated in sectionals. Sullivan made club history last year when she became the first one to ever place in finals at sectionals. She earned eighth place in the 50-breast stroke. This year, Sullivan repeated her eighth place finish in the event and also earned fifth place in the finals in the 100-breast and 200-breast among the 12-year-old girls.
Meanwhile, fellow sectionals veteran Jordan Loyda placed eighth in the 100-free style among 15-year-old boys.
This was the first time that Jessica Loyda, Josh Loyda and Jamie Bouda qualified for sectionals.
"Josh and Jessica had really good swims," coach Loyda said. "I was really proud of them."
Jamie Bouda let his nerves get the best of him on the first day of competition and was disqualified in both of his events, the 100-back stroke and the 50-free. Then Saturday he fought back with a clean swim in the 50-back stroke and finished with a time just one second faster than his personal best.
"He finally worked through his nerves and had some great times," Loyda said.
In his next race, the 200-IM, Bouda dropped three seconds off of his best time, which was especially impressive because he had just dropped 12 seconds off of his time at the state meet earlier this month. Sunday brought another personal best for Bouda, this time in the 100-Individual Medley, as he dropped another second off of his time in that event. He had shaved off five seconds at the state meet.
"It was a real testament of perseverance and courage," Loyda said. "We talk about that a lot on our team and he lived it this weekend."
The sectionals meet gives the young swimmers plenty of reasons to be nervous. The Weyerhaeuser King County Aquatic Center where the event takes place has three eight-lane pools and spans the area of about two football fields. The meet attracts about 1,300 swimmers from 200 teams representing Arizona, Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, California, Idaho, Oregon, Alaska, Hawaii, Washington and Montana.
"It's huge," Loyda said. "It's very intimidating for a kid to walk in and see that. The blocks they use for starting are different than the ones we use too. There are a lot of adjustments to be made."
While Loyda is impressed with her team's showing at sectionals, she is also happy with their showing at the state meet which was held March 5-7 in Butte.
At state, Sullivan was the state champion in the 50-breast and 200-breast and Bouda earned the state championship in the 50-back. They each both earned a silver medals as well. Bouda took second in the 100-back, 100-breast, 100-IM and the 200-IM. Sullivan earned her silver in the 100-breast. Also taking home individual silver medals were Caroline Dye (25-free and 50-free) and Jordan Loyda (15-back, 50-back, 50-fly and 200-back). WRSC's 10 and under boys relay team, which was made up of Trevor Woodward, Matthew Perez, Bubba Loyda and Jamie Bouda, took second in both the 200-freestyle relay and the 400-freestyle relay. The team also brought home five bronze medals and earned six fourth place medals, four fifth place, six sixth places, seven seventh places and four eighth places
"Our kids who are the top guns are the ones placing high and doing well," Loyda said. "What we were able to do is bring some more support for them. Those kids, who are the next generation, were able to get some good experience and they will be the top performers next year. We are building our base and that is really exciting."
It is hard to measure the Wave Ryder's success at meets purely based on the scores because the club has much fewer entries than larger clubs and therefore garners less points, Loyda said it can be measured it other ways at meets.
Among the 15 teams that competed at state there were only five teams with fewer athletes than WRSC.
The 21 kids who attended the meet from WRSC participated in 123 races and they collectively had 81 personal bests.
They earned a total of 22 medals and 292 points, which is an average of 13.9 points per swimmer. Loyda said these numbers are important to look at because larger teams may have more medals and more points, but the WRSC team has a greater percentage of their kids earning medals and points.
The club, which holds practices in both Bigfork and Whitefish, had 29 swimmers qualify for the state meet this year and 21 made the trip as some were unable to due to financial reasons or other obligations.
Last year, 20 swimmers from Wave Ryders qualified and 12 attended the state meet.
For Loyda, increases like that are one of the biggest measuring sticks that the club is doing well.
"We just keep doing better and better," Loyda said. "I attribute that to the kids being very well-behaved and being good listeners. The kids are really into it and the parents are very supportive. All of our coaches put in a lot of tie and effort with clinics and staying up on the latest techniques. The clubs (the Whitefish Wave and the Montana Athletic Club where the team practices' are very good to us and they make it all very easy for us. Other teams have a lot of obstacles that we are blessed to not have to deal with."
While the short course season is over, the Wave Ryder Swim Club is already preparing for long course season. The first meet the team will participate in will be May 15 in Bozeman. Even though that isn't too far off, coach Loyda is giving the kids a little bit of a break in the pool.
Half of the practice time she is using to work on techniques, but the other half the kids get to have fun in the pool and play games.