Friday Highlights:

From Las Animas, there were only 5 swimmers in this session. Normally distance is not something these kids volunteer to swim, however they all did a fantastic job.

Kiana Siefkas was without a doubt the team leader of the day. She dropped major amounts of time to post the fastest times in both events (400 Free and 1500 Free). In the 400 she dropped 23 seconds to swim a 6:13.69 (finishing 8th). The 1500 was tough on all of them since no one has swum the event since last summer. Kiana posted a time of 26:01.10 to finish 5th in the event.

Other swimmers that did well...

Sherri Futch swam a 6:14.48 in the 400 to finish 9th.
Tami Futch swam a 6:17.90 in the 400 to finish 10th, and a 26:18.41 to finish 6th in th 1500.
Kaylyn Siefkas swam a 6:20.16 in the 400(a drop of 8 seconds) to finish 11th in the 400.
Ryan Siefkas was the only boy swimming for us today, but he came through as well. His 400 time was a 6:37.75 (despite major goggle difficulties) placing 5th in the event. In the 1500, he swam a 26:19.54 to finish 4th.

All together our swimmers scored 87 points!

Not a bad day...

Other highlights:
VAST finished 1st in 7 of the 10 events
La Junta finished 1st in 2 events
Lamar finished 1st in 1 event

Teams competing in the Trofin invitational:
Valley Area Swim Team (in La Junta - an all year elite team)
La Junta Tiger Sharks
Lamarlins
Las Animas Trofins
Rocky Ford Blue Marlins

Saturday Highlights:
This was a great day for the Trofins. Our morning crew swam terrific, however the highlight has to be Jacob Lockhart getting an 8 & under Festival time in his 100 IM.

In the Afternoon, Everyone enjoyed the excitement and enthusiasm our new swimmers showed(Alyssa Beise, Mara Brown, and Mayggun Molenski) however the big swimming highlight came from one our usual suspects. Sarah MacDonnell dropped 18 seconds in her 200 IM to easily qualify for the league championships coming up in 3 weeks.

All of our new A meet swimmers swam great today. Some of their highlights include: Amanda McCaslin swam a tough 25 backstroke with pretty good technique. In the same event Beth Myers also got the attention of the other teams. Beverly Smart would have qualified for league, but will age up and become 9 prior to that meet. On the boys side of that event, Derek Johnston qualified for league in his first ever event at an A meet. Christian Smart swam tough in all of his events at the 9-10 age group. Alyssa Biese swam great in her first events. Both times I had coaches come up and ask who she was. Our last 2 swimmers are Mayggun and Mara. These two swim in the 13-14 age group, and managed to beat some girls with much more experience then them! All in all it was a great day. I hope to see you at the pool on Sunday.

Look for pictures of the meet in this weeks Bent County Democrat!

Sunday Highlights:

We had some great swims on Sunday. We now have 3 boys qualified for sure to go to the 8 & under festival(state championships) at DU on August 1st. Buck Lockridge joined Jacob Lockhart and William Valdez. Other morning kids that shined...Lonnie Skiles dropped 26.51 seconds in his 25 backstroke! That is an incredible swim.

Inthe afternoon the kids showed they weren't afraid of the stiff competition we were facing. Both the 13-14 boys and the open girls 400 free relays posted team record times of 5:14! Later on Sarah MacDonnell dropped 7 seconds on her 100 free since last week in Canon City. Nate Valdez decided he wasn't going to be outdone, and dropped 5. Then he turned around in the next event and dropped 13 to win the 200 backstroke easily with a time of 3:13!

A special thanks go out to all of our parent volunteers, and the ones who just plain volunteered without having any kids on our team. It is because of people like you that we can put on activities like this for our kids.