The Mingus swim team overcame one monsoon storm to beat the other Monsoons, not to mention the Eagles, in its triangular meet Tuesday, Sept. 10, at the outdoor Cottonwood Community Pool.
Despite a nearly continuous rain, the Marauders swam past the Flagstaff Eagles and the aptly named Mesa Prep Monsoons with a total team score of 249 points, barely edging the Eagles, at 242 points, while the Monsoons finished with 81 points.
Although swimmers swimming in the rain is kind of redundant, Mingus coach Brendon Kenney said he was proud of what his team was able to accomplish, top to bottom, in their first competition of the season.
“We pushed some new swimmers, especially on the boys side, into some events that were very difficult for them, and they stepped up,” Kenney said. “In general, it was a good starting point for the season.”
Kenney said he thought the meet was a good barometer because Flagstaff always has a good team — and the Eagles train at 7,000 feet, which gives them an edge at the lower elevation in Cottonwood.
“I know some of their swimmers started competing year-round, so they’ve been working pretty hard for a long time now coming into this season,” he said. “It was nice to be able to compete against them in the first meet because I think we did see that we obviously need to improve, but we swam well against our own times and we saw that we are improving individually and as a collective team.”
The Mingus boys 200-yard medley relay team of seniors Jared Cutshaw and Dylan Wilber, along with sophomores Caleb Furey and Sean Williams, kicked things off with a big win during which it was never really challenged, besting the second-place Flagstaff team by more than seven seconds with a time of 1 minute, 57.12 seconds.
For the full story, please see the Wednesday, Sept. 18, issue of the Cottonwood Journal Extra.
