Patriots shine at SOSSA swim meet (updated with link to results)
The Laura Secord girls 14 and under 200-SC metre medley relay team could not have picked a better time to have their best race of the season.
Eli McManus, Kaylin Jensen, Carly Greavette and Hazel Heaton combined to finish first in a time of 2:36.34 at the Southern Ontario Secondary Schools Association (SOSSA) swim meet Thursday at Brock.
The time shattered the OFSAA (Ontario Federation of School Athletic Associations) qualifying mark of 2:52.22.
“It was their best time this year,” Secord coach Shannon Pollock said.
Pollock was quick to give credit to main coach Laura Jarvis, who is on leave and was unable to attend.
“Laura has been working realty hard with them and she thought they had a really good chance to win and go on to OFSAA but I don’t know if she foresaw them swimming that time today,” Pollock said.
Relay teams qualify for OFSAA, which will be held at the Toronto Pan Am Sports Centre March 5-6, by placing first or meeting the qualifying time.
McManus, a 14-year-old, Grade 9 student swam the backstroke.
“I did not expect to do so well,” she said. “I got really lucky to have such experienced swimmers with me because my other members are in Grade 10.
“I’m excited to go to OFSAA.”
Greavette, a 15-year-old, Grade 10 student, swam the butterfly.
“It was so much fun,” she said. “We just went out to have some fun and had no idea what was going to happen. It was great. Honestly, both our coaches, the philosophy is just to have fun. A lot of us are new swimmers so it’s new and different but we ended up doing well.”
Greavette was part of last year’s squad which finished second at SOSSA and qualified for OFSAA.
“Anything is possible so we’re really excited. Last year we went and came 17th so we’re hoping to make it past that,” she said.
Jensen, a 16-year-old, Grade student, swam the breaststroke.
“We just wanted to have fun. We’ve been swimming together as a relay team for a few months now and we just wanted to have a great race together,” she said.
Jansen said when McManus got off to a strong start, she inspired the rest of the team.
“I saw that Eli had a pretty big lead at the start and all of us thought we had to keep this (going) for my team,” she said. “I’m really proud of how we did.”
Heaton, a 15-year-old, Grade 10 student, anchored the team and swam freestyle.
“When we got out there we were really nervous but once we to out there we did really well and we were in the lead a lot,” she said.
Following are results:
https://www.nrhsaa.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/SOSSA-2023-Final-Team-scores.pdf
https://www.nrhsaa.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/SOSSA-2023-results.pdf
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