On Thursday, September. 20. the Sedona swim team competed against Seton Catholic and Gilbert Christian at the Sedona Community Pool.

In the combined scores, Seton Catholic defeated Sedona 185-131. Sedona narrowly edged out Gilbert Christian 158-152.

On the girls’ side, Seton Catholic defeated Sedona 89-62 and Gilbert Christian defeated Sedona 81-66. For the boys, Seton Catholic defeated Sedona 96-69 while Sedona beat Gilbert Christian 92-71.

“Going into this meet we knew Seton Catholic had some good kids so the goal on Thursday was simply to race,” Sedona coach Daniel Morse said. “We are in a tough part of the season schedule and training wise and our team has displayed great mental fortitude and an ability to race and perform well while fatigued.”

Sedona swimmer Andrew Tate won the boys 500 yard freestyle, posting a 5:13.12.

Andrew’s time narrowly defeated Seton Catholic’s Jack Luken, who posted a 5:14.96.

“There were some good individual performances from Andrew and Nyah Valdez but I want to avoid the individual accolades until state,” Morse said.

Sedona won the girls 200 yard relay as Reagan Seip, Ellie Seip, Dezra Dana, and Nyah posted a 2:05.50.

“Our relays all performed very well which shows that all our swimmers are contributing to the team and pushing each other to improve,” Morse said.
Dezra also won the girls 100 yard breaststroke with 1:24.18 Finals time.

Teammates Ellie (1:25.84) and Reagan (1:31.20) placed second and third respectively.

With the Arizona State Swim Meet only a month away, Sedona is tweaking their practices to prepare.

“The training now is going to begin to transition into more speed and race pace with the swimmers getting more specific training to their strokes and events,” Morse said. “Some swimmers may have eight sprints while others have longer races and different strokes.”

The distance per practice will decrease for Sedona as the Scorpions will focus on polishing their game.

As the season inches towards the qualifying rounds, Sedona is focusing on developing skill while utilizing those skills at race speed.

“Since the swimmers are well conditioned we want to develop their ability to move at high RPM’s for several races in a day,” Morse said.“Practice length will not lesson yet as we are still doing a fair amount of yards but focusing on increasing the intensity and rest intervals.”

On Thursday, September. 27. the Scorpions host Horizon Honors High School and Paradise Honors High School.

The match begins at 4 p.m.

The state meet is Saturday. November. 3. with the preliminary round taking place on the preceding Thursday.

Ivan Leonard can be reached at 282-7795, Ext. 131, or e-mail to ileonard@larsonnewspapers.com