Sophia Pieck leads off with the Backstroke leg of the 200 medley relay while fellow relay-mates Anna Wetteland and Michelle Lo cheer her on. Courtesy Photo

SPORTS News:

A blink of an eye takes about a tenth of a second. For the Hilltopper Swim and Dive team Saturday Feb. 2, a blink here and there added up to a strong third place finish for both the girls and boys teams at Albuquerque Academy’s Tom Casey Memorial Swim Meet.

This was a very fast meet with 10 of the fastest teams in New Mexico invited. Eldorado and Albuquerque Academy are always formidable in the water and so the fact that both the boys and girls were so close was an impressive showing.

The Eldorado boys relays were especially dominant, setting meet records in all 3 relays, and destroying the 200 medley relay state record by more than 2 seconds.

Many other races were much closer than that. In one of the closest finishes of the day, the girls 200 Freestyle relay (Anna Wetteland, Sophia Pieck, Lena Ronning, Michelle Lo) finished 0.02 seconds behind first place Academy. In another razor close finish, Zane Pederson’s dropped a full second off his best time in the 200 Freestyle to finish fifth, within 0.01 seconds of his fourth-place rival.

In other finishes, Michell Lo and Emily McLaughlin clocked best times and both made State cuts in the 50 Freestyle.  Lo and Lena Ronning made State cuts in the 100 Freestyle along with Duncan Henderson (100 Butterfly), Nikolai Nelson (200 IM), and Sophia Pieck (200 Freestyle). William Borovina swam a State cut in the 100 Backstroke.

Borovina was also in a small group of swimmers who had best times that are close to State cut times, but not there yet. Others include Alma Hurlocker in the 100 Butterfly (even after her goggles fell off), Samantha Clayton in the 100 Freestyle, Emily McLaughlin and Ian Corey in the 100 Backstroke.

For the dive team, Siena Rolfe’s performance in the one-meter diving competition earned her a State qualifying score. Elliot Beveridge also qualified for the boys, joining Ian Corey and Asher Koh who had earlier in the season made State scores.

A number of other noteworthy swims contributed to the team: 

• Catherine Price swam a gutsy 500 Freestyle, not only dropping 5 seconds from her best time, but passing four rival swimmers in the last 100 yards to place third
• Emma Reid dropped more than 7 seconds from her best time in the 500 Freestyle 
• Samantha Clayton swam her best time in the 100 Freestyle, dropping an impressive 2.88 seconds, getting close to a State cut
• In the boys 400 Freestyle relay, Zane Pederson recorded a split of 48.88 seconds, cutting more than 2 seconds off his best time
• In the girls 400 Freestyle relay, Anna Wetteland recorded a split a shade over 51 seconds

As an indicator of how the team is reaching its peak at just the right time of the season, a total of 38 best times from 19 different swimmers have been recorded in the last two weeks.  

Looking towards State, Eldorado (boys) and Academy (girls) continue to be the top swim teams to beat.  At the Casey, the Topper boys and girls matched up against them well.

The Tom Casey meet is held every year in honor of Tom Casey, a former Academy swimmer and US Army captain who was tragically killed serving our county in the line of duty in 2008 at the age of 32 during Operation Iraqi Freedom.