By GARLAND KENNEDY
Sentinel Sports Editor
For the first time in a decade, a small squad from the Baranof Barracudas Swim Club traveled to Petersburg to compete in the annual November Rain meet this past weekend.
Over the three days, some Sitka swimmers turned in times that qualify them for the Junior Olympics and Age Group Championships.
Ten-year-old Sawyer Bastian qualified for Age Groups in the 500-yard freestyle with a winning time of 6:54 for the 20 laps. He took first place in the event.
Baranof Barracudas’ Sawyer Bastian prepares to dive into an event at the November Rain swim meet, this weekend in Petersburg. Sawyer qualified to swim in the upcoming Age Group Championship meet. (Photo provided by Kevin Knox)
He described the swim meet as “really good” and credited the results to his training routine.
“On Tuesdays and Fridays I do mornings – that’s one hour – and I do afternoons every day – and that’s two hours,” he said. “(I’m) mainly just working hard and training a lot,” he added. To show for it, he finished first in all but one of his events. He won the 100 free in 1:10 and the 200 free in 2:34.
“I started swimming when I was four, and COVID happened and I took a break for a year or two and I got back in at the beginning of this spring,” Sawyer said.
He swims a variety of events, but his favorite?
“Probably the 500 free, mainly just because it’s not too long, I can do it but it’s just really fun and I like doing it,” the sixth grader said.
His path to the Age Group Championship meet will require him to requalify as an 11-year-old next year, and in the meantime he plans to keep up his practice regime and swim in more meets. Fortunately, he enjoys the sport.
“I really like it, it’s exercise and it’s fun. I like to travel, too,” he said.
Others who qualified for Junior Olympics were:
Taryn Fleming in the 500 free in 6:07; 200 back in 2:31; and 50 free in 29.48 seconds.
Evi Rice in the 50 breastroke, 39.03 seconds; and the 100 breaststroke, 1:26.
Elliott Galanin qualified for the Age Group Championship meet in the 500 free, 6:21; 200 free, 2:24; 100 free, 1:04; and 50 free, 29.57.
Another 10-year-old Barracudas swimmer, Braylon Doyle, is much newer to the sport than is Bastian, but highlighted his freestyle swims.
“The 200 freestyle was really easy. It was my first time trying out a new way of doing the freestyle stroke, because normally I wouldn’t stretch out as much and this time I really stretched out and it went really well,” Braylon said at practice on Monday.
He completed the 200 in 4:25.
He was also in the 200 yard freestyle relay with Sawyer Bastian, Scotty Golden and Elliott Galanin. The group finished in 2:27.
“It was really fun because (there were) people on my team that I hadn’t known and then after we did that, we kind of knew a little more about how everybody else swam,” Braylon said.
The fourth grader also swam in the 50 yard butterfly race, though he’d like to improve in that event in the future. He finished in 1:21.
“I did butterfly and I was really slow at it. And it’s just really tiring… It went good, I was just really slow.”
He began training in the sport last winter.
From Doyle’s perspective, the best part of swimming is the fact the season doesn’t end.
“So it’s not like there’s a certain season that you do it,” he said. “It’s just all year round.”
Barracudas coach Kevin Knox was glad his team got to enter the Petersburg November Rain meet for the first time in years.
“We haven’t been to it in more than 10 years just because it’s logistically a little more challenging,” Knox said. But the trip was worth it, he said, and not just for the competition,
“We got to go swim in the Petersburg pool, which is quite a nice facility,” he said.
The results from his small cadre of seven swimmers were another reward.
“They did great,” the coach said. “We had a couple older kids that went and then mostly younger kids. One of the goals for some of the older kids was to make some qualifying cuts for Age Group Champs and JOs... Elliott Galanin and Sawyer Bastian did really well there.”
The competition had representation from all teams in Southeast except Haines.
The Barracudas will swim again in Ketchikan in the first weekend of December.
