The Cottonwood Outdoor Pool will be defended by the hometown Clippers when four other teams converge for the Verde Valley Invitational at 8 a.m. Saturday, July 23.
“I’m hoping that the kids use that as their big finale — kind of their championship,” Cottonwood Clippers first-year head coach Gretchen Wesbrock said. “This is, essentially, our last invitational.
“For our team, the key is going to be getting there early.”
The final day of the summer season Saturday, July 30, the Clippers will be split up between Payson and Arizona State University. Most of the Clippers will take on the Payson Pikes, with some electing to go to ASU to swim in the Grand Canyon Games.
So the focus for Wesbrock on the progress of her 87 club swimmers is very much on the July 23 showdown with the Sedona Swordfish, Bullhead City Barracudas, Kingman Dolphins and the Sandsharks of Needles, Calif.
“We had 70 swimmers at Sedona,” she said of her team’s showing a month ago at the Sedona Splash. “I’m hoping we have 17 more than that, since it’s our home pool.”
She will need a big day from girls like Emily Grasso, Emily Mohr and Emma Warner as well as boys like Fletch Fangman, Dallin Gordon and Gunner Tillemans.
“They’ve been working hard,” she said. “It’s nice to see how the kids have improved. I’m excited to see the payoff.”
But Joseph Calhoon, Ashley and Evan Doerksen and sisters Hannah and Zoey Arwine, along with Wesbrock’s 15
A-prep swimmers, will also need to step up.
“It’s really exciting to watch some of the middle schoolers challenging themselves to do the same sets as the high school kids,” she said. “They’ll drop anywhere from two to 10 seconds in an event.”
Even then, it will be a tall order for the Clippers to overcome the more than 125 swimmers from the Barracudas, who relegated 21 Cottonwood swimmers to third place in their previous invitational June 25 in Kingman.
