KISU’s fourth place result at Wenatchee’s Apple Capital swim meet impressed swim coach Tina Hoeben.
Bellevue, Velocity and Issaquah swim took the top three spots in Washington May 30-June 1.
Despite that, Hoeben said KISU swimmers had fabulous results.
“It is a great meet with some interesting challenges for the swimmers,” said Hoeben. “Outdoors can be very fun, but also very challenging especially for backstroke where the swimmers don’t have the ceiling to guide them. It can also be challenging for weather — it can be much hotter and cooler than a controlled building.”
Finishing atop their age group were Acacia Benn, 12, scoring 94, and Samuel Lasinski,15, who had 59 points. Benn won the 400-metre individual medley, as well as the 800-m freestyle, the 100-m backstroke, 50-m backstroke, 200-m backstroke, 200-m free and 200-IM. She was also second in the 200-m fly and third in the 100-m free.
Lasinski was second in the 400-m IM, 100-m fly and 100-m breast stroke. He took third in the 200-m back and 10-m breaststroke.
“Acacia was very strong. She swam many best times and (set) club records,” said Hoeben. “Sam swam a tough program and was in a meet format that ran quite fast, so he had back-to-back tough events without a lot of rest. I was very pleased with how well he stood up and raced.”
KISU faced a variety of clubs, mostly from Washington, including Bellevue, which brought 225 swimmers and Hoeben liked what she saw from them.
She said Issaquah was very big and strong. Wenatchee also had a numbers advantage and strong swimmers.
The Apple Capital was an in-season training meet for KISU with Hoeben expecting best times from the older swimmers.
“Mostly it was great for everyone to get the experience and to race under different conditions,” said Hoeben. “I was very pleased with how well our swimmers did. This is a meet where swimmers can play around with their race strategies and experiment.”
Other KISU results had Emmy Caruso finish second in the 200 IM and third in the 200-m breast stroke. Marlee Caruso won the 100-m backstroke and was second in the 50-m backstroke.
Thomas Caruso finished second in the 50-m backstroke. He also took third in the 50-m free.
Daniel Everton had seven top-three finishes, including first in the 200-m freestyle, second in 100- and 200-m fly and 200-m backstroke. He was also third in the 50-m backstroke, 200-m fly and 100-m backstroke.
Jaren LeFranc took first in the 100-m breast stroke and second in 50- and 200-m breast stroke.
Xelian Louw finished second in 200 IM and third in 100- and 200-m back stroke.
Myah Nackoney took third in 400-m free relay. Payton Nackoney won the 100-m fly and took third in 200-m freestyle and 200 IM.
Wynn Nordlund finished third in 100-m breast stroke.
Tyler Wall took first in 50-m freestyle and second in the 400-m free, 400 IM, 50-m fly and 100-m backstroke. Mackenzie
Wallich took first in 800-m free and second in 200-m backstroke.
The boys’ eight and under group of Sean Peters, Caruso, Kliever and Nordlund took second in 200-m freestyle and medley relay.