By Andy Pfeiffer, RSS Swimming
Richmond’s Watermania hosted the 2011 B.C. High School Swimming Championships and the Revelstoke Secondary School Swim team turned a few heads during the two day meet last weekend. Lead by double-medalist Emily Pfeiffer, the 13-member team managed to qualify multiple relay teams in finals and consolation finals, showing strength both in individual events and as a team.
In individual events, Emily Pfeiffer made it out of the heats to advance to Saturday’s finals in each of her three individual events. After finishing third in the heats on Friday in the 50m freestyle, Pfeiffer improved her time in the finals and held on for a bronze medal finish.
The 100m individual medley, though, is where she surprised even herself. Heading into the finals in fifth place, Pfeiffer found herself swimming in lane two, hoping that maybe she’d have an outside chance at a bronze. But with a strong push in the final 10 metres, she managed to out-touch two other swimmers.
“When I finished my race, I looked up at the clock and thought I finished fourth and I thought, ‘Oh well, fourth’s not bad,’” she said.
With a second look, though, she quickly corrected herself and realized she won silver.
With thirteen swimmers advancing to the provincials, RSS had a full complement of relays in Richmond over the weekend highlighting its strength as a team. The best of the bunch was the mixed 200 metre free relay, where Pfeiffer, along with Jacob Wallach, Gina Cinelli and Liam McCabe made the finals and finished in eighth place with a time of 2:01.08 on Saturday – two seconds faster than their qualifying time in the heats on Friday.
Earlier the 400m Free Relay of Jessa Burke, Emily Federico, Emily Suchy and Jayda Park finished 14th in Saturday’s consolation final. Twelth place was earned by Stef Wallach, Burke, Park, and Cinelli in the girls 200m Free relay.
With more than 110 high school teams present and 1,000 athletes at the meet, RSS found themselves competing among the best in the province. High School swimming is organized so all schools compete together which means the biggest schools compete against the smallest. Also, there are no grade categories; grade 8 swimmers compete against grade 12 swimmers.
The girls team finished in 20th place out of 113 teams, beating out huge, powerhouse lower mainland schools such as Burnaby South, Dover Bay, and Argyle. And given an abundance of young talent on the team, next year looks even brighter for RSS swimming.
The complete results are as follows:
Individual Events
Emily Pfeiffer - 100m IM Silver 1:13.45, 50m Fly Bronze 31.23, 50m Back
9th 33.71
Gina Cinelli -- 50m Breast 23rd 40.90
Jordan Cwikula - 50m Free 28th 30.61
Liam McCabe - 50m Free 26th 29.67
Bryce Molder - 100m IM 27th 1:23.63
Josh Rota - 50m Back 28th 37.58
Relays
Girls 200 Medley - 24th 2:51.14 Wallach, Stefanie; Rota, Emma; Federico,
Emily; Suchy, Emily
Girls 400 Freestyle - 15th 5:39.35 Federico, Emily; Suchy, Emily; Park,
Jayda; Burke, Jessa
Boys 400 Freestyle - 14th 4:55.67 Wallach, Jacob; Molder, Bryce; McCabe,
Liam; Rota, Josh
Mixed 200 Medley - DQ Cwikula, Jordan; Cinelli, Gina; Molder, Bryce;
Park, Jayda
Mixed 200 Medley - 21st 2:35.47 Rota, Josh; Rota, Emma; Wallach, Jacob;
Wallach, Stefanie
Mixed 200 Freestyle - 8th 2:01.08 Pfeiffer, Emily; Cinelli, Gina;
Wallach, Jacob; McCabe, Liam
Mixed 200 Freestyle - 19th 2:16.04 Park, Jayda; Burke, Jessa; Rota, Josh;
Cwikula, Jordan
Girls 200 Freestyle - 12th 2:13.30 Wallach, Stefanie; Park, Jayda; Burke,
Jessa; Cinelli, Gina
Girls 200 Freestyle - 26th 2:36.12 Federico, Emily; Suchy, Emily; Rota,
Emma;
Boys 200 Freestyle - 14th 2:01.11 McCabe, Liam; Molder, Bryce; Cwikula,
Jordan; Wallach, Jacob