Tiger swimmers shine at end to win
Published 12:00 am Wednesday, September 6, 2006
It didn&8217;t look good for the Albert Lea girls&8217; swim team to repeat its victory over Rochester John Marshall from last year trailing by 15 points with three events left.
However, the Tigers showed plenty of fight and came up winners in each of the remaining events to claw out a 93-90 win over the Rockets.
Amanda Walters began the rally with a victory in the 100 backstroke with a mark of 1:06.98. She was followed to the wall by teammate Jackie Elwood who took second with a time of 1:09.09.
Gracie Thomas had more than a two second cushion on the runner-up from JM in winning the 100 breaststroke with a time of 1:17.86 while Blair Schreiber took third.
Those points brought the Tigers within three at 86-83 with just the 400 freestyle remaining.
The team of Amanda Walters, Korbin Wayne, Elwood and Whitney Walters would take much of the suspense out of the race early. The quartet built a seven second lead and won with ease posting a time of 4:01.37.
That victory along with a third place showing by Nicole Larson, Mallory Carstens, Heather Carlson and Emily Klick
secured the team victory for the Tigers. It was their first of the year and the first under new head coach Jon Schmitz.
The dramatic finish did not overshadow several strong performances earlier in the meet.
Amanda Walters, Thomas, Elwood and Samantha Cole edged out a Rocket team by just over a tenth of a second to win the 200 medley relay and Katie Walechka took first in the diving competition totaling 104.75 points.
Whitney Walters took second in the 200 freestyle with at time of 2:13.17, while Amanda Walters was the runner-up in the 50 free coming to the wall in 26.82. She would also finish in second place in the 500 free and Elwood would take second in the 100 butterfly.
The Tiger junior varsity won convincingly 81-22 over JM.
Albert Lea won all three relays and got individual wins from Rachel Gould (200 free, 500 free), Blair Schreiber (200 IM), Ali Schmitz (50 free), Andrea Lares (100 butterfly) and Jasmine Hanson (100 free).