By GARLAND KENNEDY
Sentinel Sports Editor
In their only home meet of the year, Sitka High swimmers were hosts Friday and Saturday to teams from across Southeast at the Blatchley pool.
The Wolves also took time to honor their senior swimmers before diving back into the competition.
One of those seniors, Kanen Alley, was happy with the results of her final meet in her home pool, and the team finished the meet with high hopes for the upcoming Region V contest.
Sitka High swimmers pose for a shot on the beach earlier in the season. The team competed in their only home meet of the year Friday and Saturday and will swim in the regional meet Oct. 28 and 29. (Photo provided by Meghan Devine)
Sitka High senior Kanen Alley races in the 200 yard medley relay, Saturday in Sitka. She swam the event with Emma Gassman, Klayeah Lozada and Mia Turner. The relay squad took third place. (Photo by Larry Lozada)
This was a comeback year for Alley, who started the season injured but was back for the 100 free, 100 back, and 100 fly – and in the 400 free and 200 medley team relays.
“The 100 fly was definitely a highlight, because I just think it’s a really fun event and I felt really strong in the first 50,” Alley told the Sentinel at practice Wednesday. “I just like the challenge. I like that it’s hard, but it’s different.”
Her teammate Emma Gassman took first in that event in 1:02, while the Wolves’ Mia Turner took eighth in 1:13 and Alley tenth in 1:14.
Gassman was first again in the 100 yard backstroke in 1:03, with Alley seventh in 1:13. On Friday, Gassman took second in the 50 free in 26.25 and second in the 500 free in 5:28.
Following up the individual events, Alley, Gassman, Turner and Klayeah Lozada took second place in the 400 freestyle relay in 4:04, less than a second behind Thunder Mountain’s relay squad.
“The relays went really well,” said Alley. “I think on all of my relays, it was me, Klayeah, Mia and Emma, and we seem like we do really well together, which is really fun to do well as a team, to be able to share that. And the 400 was tough. It was the last event on the last day of the meet, but it was fun and we all pushed ourselves and pushed each other.”
The same group finished third in the 200 medley relay in 2:04. Also Saturday, Lozada finished seventh in the 50 free in 27.77, with Mia Turner half of a second behind. Sitka’s Sydney Davis took 16th.
Alley said she’s looking forward to the regional meet Oct. 28 and 29 in Juneau.
“I hope to get to where I was last year, if not faster or better, because I’ve gone into the season injured – which was tough to compare myself to last year. So that’s been difficult, but I just hope that in the end I’ll get close to where I was last year and if not, then to just have fun with my team at regions,” she said.
After years of swimming with the same set of friends, Alley described the closing weeks of her high school swim career as “bittersweet.”
“I’m a senior. It’s pretty crazy and hard to believe that it’s my last year. And some of these kids I’ve been swimming with since I was eight or nine,” she said. “So it’s really exciting to see all of the littler ones that are not little any more and see how much they’ve grown, too… (It’s) a little bit stressful, but also exciting, bittersweet. I have to start thinking about what’s next. But at the same time, I’m just trying to enjoy the time that I have.”
While Alley’s time on the swim team will end in the coming weeks, junior Jaden Costelo is looking forward to his senior year. But first he has an eye on the remainder of the 2022 season.
On Saturday, Costelo finished first in the long 500 free in 5:30 – a full 17 seconds better than his seed time and 16 seconds ahead of the second place finisher.
“It was really rewarding… I just kept going and went with it,” he said. “I kept seeing Meghan (Sitka coach Meghan Devine) telling me to go faster. And I was like, ‘All right, let’s just go faster!’ It just felt like it was a really smooth race.”
In a much shorter race, the two pool lengths of the 50 free, Costelo finished third in 23.72, only 0.62 seconds behind the leader. Costelo, Porter Bastian, Henry Ward and Brandon Stevens took second in the 400 free relay in 3:36. The same four finished third in the 200 medley relay in 1:55. Costelo, Ward, Stevens and Bastian also finished second in the 400 free relay and third in the 200 medley relay on Friday. Stevens took third in the 200 free on Saturday in 2:05, with Ward eight seconds behind in fifth. Noah Bustamente earned seventh in the event in 2:15. Porter Bastian finished third in Saturday’s 200 individual medley.
During the meet, the team took time to honor their four seniors: Emma Gassman, Kanen Alley, Brandon Stevens and David Davis.
Also on Friday, Costelo snagged second in the 100 breaststroke in 1:05. At the moment, he’s the 12th fastest in the state in that event.
While Alley and Costelo are experienced swimmers on the team, the weekend was freshman Sam Davis’ first ever home meet.
On Friday Davis took 15th in the 50 free in 30.32 and on Saturday he shifted gears to the much longer 500, taking ninth in 7:11. Though the 20-lap event was a challenge, Davis said it was also worthwhile.
“The 500 that I did, I think that was my highlight,” he said. “I just like swimming long distances and it was just fun and I had to (pace) myself, too,” the freshman said. He finished eighth in the 100 back in 1:20. At the upcoming regional meet, he’d like to improve his time in that event.
“I want to do my 100 back again, I don’t think I did that good last time,” he said.
After pushing her athletes out of their comfort zone and into the 500 free this season, Coach Devine was pleased with the results.
“I’m making all the swimmers swim the 500 this year,” she said. “As a distance swimmer, I feel that it’s necessary. So a lot of our first-time freshmen boys swam the 500 this week, and I think that was one of the things that I was proudest of, taking on that challenge and kind of killing it.”
With the Region V meet only a week and a half away, the coach thinks her team is in a solid position.
“Our times are exactly where they should be as we go into taper. I think our technique is good, I think they’re pretty in shape,” she said. “The times from this last meet told me that, because we had really hard sets that whole week before. So they should have been really tired, but their times were so good… I’m really excited about where we are and what we’re going to do with regions.”
