Over the weekend, swimmers from the Mingus Union High School team were in the pool at the Cottonwood Aquatics Center for the JR Pooler Invitational hoping to qualify for the state meet.
As a way to keep the crowds at the pool down and allow social distancing on the deck, the boys and girls swam on different days. The boys swam on the afternoon of Friday, Oct. 30, and the girls were in the water on the morning of Saturday, Oct. 31.
One race that the Marauders were particularly adept in was the 200-yard medley relay, which opened both days.
The Mingus quartet of senior Jarod Gordon and juniors Landon Trezise, Jarom Banks and Jack Zahoudanis won their race with a time of 2:03.05, bettering their seed time of 2:04.69 by more than a second. Their female teammates — senior Charlie Green and juniors Bailey Hartman, Brooke Peterson and Jade Bach did the same the following day, touching first at 2:10.83, ahead of the seed time of 2:11.12.
“We swam really good,” Peterson said. “Everyone swam their part and PR’d individually on the relay. We swam faster times because of that.”
While the medley relays were the only events in which Mingus was victorious, a number of other Marauders had high finishes.
Mingus finished second in eight events. Hartman was a runner-up in the girls 200 individual medley [2:50.72] and 100 backstroke [1:16.86], Peterson touched second in the girls 50 freestyle [26.39] and 100 breaststroke [1:20.15], Tresize was second in the boys 100 butterfly [1:07.92] and sophomore Hunter Cowgill placed second in the 100 breaststroke [1:19.11].
The Marauder girls also finished second in both of the other relays. The quartet of Peterson, Hartman, Lodico and Bach was [1:52.86] second place in the 200 freestyle relay and sophomore Allie Kozlowski, Lodico, junior Madison Hartman and Green [4:32.67] touched second in the 400 freestyle relay.
A theme of the meet for both the Mingus girls and boys was personal bests. The Marauders were entered in events 24 times, while the boys were entered 23 times. The seeding times were improved upon 18 times by the girls and 16 times by the boys.
Some of that improvement can be owed to the fact that the qualifying meet is something that the swimmers always train to have their best times at. Additionally, this particular qualifying meet was the first time that the Mingus swimmers shared the pool with opponents from other schools, as the rest of the year had been nothing but virtual meets. The Marauders acknowledged that the extra competition made things better.
“Having a full pool definitely helps,” Peterson said. “We have a lot of competition within our team. So even without a full pool we swim fast. But even a couple more people in the pool makes it feel like a meet. You get into that mindset to swim faster.”
“It’s been so long since I’ve gotten to see the other faces when I race,” added sophomore Race Armstrong, who swam the 500 freestyle in 6:43.19, better than his seed time of 6:49.26. “In the season we just had virtual meets — which is like racing your own team.”
The Marauders didn’t know that they would be hosting the JR Pooler Invitational until the regular season was underway. With the Arizona Interscholastic Association trying to limit the number of participants at each meet, Mingus and the other participating schools didn’t have a qualifier to go to, so AIA began to ask those schools if hosting an event would be plausible.
Marauders coach Gretchen Wesbrock then took the steps to see if the Cottonwood Aquatics Center would be a possible host, which it was.
“We’re super thankful for the city of Cottonwood, the Parks and Rec department — [Parks and Recreation manager] Jak Teel,” Wesbrock said. “They’ve just been awesome to be able to help make this happen for our athletes.”
The state meet will be held on Saturday, Nov. 7, at Phoenix Country Day School. The boys and girls meets will again be split up, with the boys swimming in the morning and the girls in the afternoon.
Mingus will be represented seven — possibly eight — times at state.
Gordon and Bach both qualified in two events. Gordon made state in the boys 100 freestyle and backstroke events, while Bach qualified in the girls 50 and 100 freestyles. Peterson qualified along with Bach in the girls 50 freestyle, while Hartman [Madison] qualified in the girls 500 freestyle and is an alternate in the 200 freestyle. Additionally, the 200 freestyle relay team of Peterson, Hartman, Lodico and Bach also qualified.
