Pack swims to crosstown title
The Glacier and Flathead swim teams are, for at least five afternoons a week, combined into one churning, butterflying, freestyling mass.
So Friday’s crosstown meet at the Summit Medical Fitness Center could best be called a “friendly”: The three relays were mixed-sex and so were the individual races.
“Really different,” said Flathead sophomore standout Lily Milner, who won the 100 backstroke and swam on Glacier’s two winning relays Friday. “I’m racing boys. I never race boys.”
Asked how it went, she replied: “Good! I mean, I won.”
Glacier had won the last two crosstown meets and Wolfpack captain Caroline Dye felt the pressure of keeping the streak going.
“It takes a lot of strategy to stack everyone where they’ll earn the most points,” she said. “We had a lot of state qualifiers which is great, this is what this meet is for. I’m just trying to take everything in stride – you know, take all the positive aspects. It’s been a really fun meet.”
Glacier ended up winning 135-130, getting the points it needed from its 400-yard freestyle relay team of Xander Stout, Derek Smith, Isaac Bertrand and Dye.
Gus DeSouza captained Flathead and did a decent job of battling Glacier’s advantage in depth. He put himself on relay teams – along with Ayden Strobbe-Berry, Gary Christianson and the one girl, Milner – that took first in the 200 medley and the 200 freestyle.
He figured it might not be enough but didn’t seem too worried.
“The past two years we haven’t had a family-oriented team like we did this year,” DeSouza said. “I’ve gotten to know more of the swimmers than I have in the past.”
The teams swim together every day at 4 p.m., and on Mondays and Thursday double up with club swimming. At meets the teams where the same black suits; you know their school by their caps – green for Glacier, orange for Braves.
DeSouza credits first-year head coach Karen Bouda – who made team shirts that say, “One town, one team, one Brave Pack’ – for the togetherness. He appreciates being named captain.
“Most people don’t know much about competitive swimming,” he said. “It’s important for the captains, Caroline and myself, to help these swimmers get comfortable in the water and ready to race.”
It went well enough Friday. Enough competitive juice to see Strobbe-Berry lower his 50 freestyle time to 23.32 (from 23.77). Three more swimmers qualified for the state championships Feb. 14-15 in Great Falls: Glacier’s Ahauna Imperato (50 free) and Luke Ritzdorf (100 freestyle) and Flathead’s Kimberlie Crowley (50 freestyle).
They seemed to be having fun doing it.
“It’s the most family-oriented team I’ve been on,” DeSouza said.