Sharks dive into tough competition

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

The Madisonville Golf and Country Club Sharks swim team dived into some tough competition Sunday at the South-Central Conference Championship but finished with satisfactory results.

The Sharks ended the meet tied with host club Greenville for third place out of the six participating teams.

“I would take that any day of the week because I know how difficult it is to do well in that conference,” Sharks coach Jason Clark said.

“This (conference) is very much more competitive than the country club conference,” Clark continued. “There are a lot of kids that swim year-round, swim in high school here in Kentucky, so we knew it was going to be tough coming in.”

Madisonville’s younger swimmers, however, were unfazed going up against some of the area’s strongest competitors.

“I was really pleased with our younger guys,” Clark said. “I can always count on my older kids to rack up points, but for this particular meet a lot of our younger guys actually got in there and got points. That allowed us to do as well as we did.”

For the first time all summer, the 8-U boys, 8-U girls and 10-U girls each competed in respective relays without encountering an illegal move or disqualification, Clark said.

“That may only be a few points, but in other meets we wouldn’t have those points, and we were able to get those points in time for third overall,” he said.

Another notable young swimmer that contributed was Hayden Reynolds. Reynolds won the 6-U boys’ freestyle during last week’s Country Club Championship in Mt. Vernon, Ind., and continued to perform well Sunday. Reynolds placed second in freestyle at Greenville and took third place in the backstroke.

“He was one point away from being the high-points winner in his age group,” Clark added.

While Reynolds performed among the best, Clark made sure to reserve some praise for another young talent, Nikko Quijano.

“I was impressed with (Quijano),” Clark said. “He was my lone 10-U boy who made it in the backstroke, and he got sixth place. But here’s the thing. That’s one point, and if he doesn’t get in, we don’t get tied for third, we get fourth place.”

For the older boys, John Hilkner continued to perform well in his second straight meet by winning a freestyle event and taking third place in the butterfly.

Although the Shark’s more youthful members surprised Clark with their performances, he was not so startled with the success of the club’s relay teams.

“Our open relays, both boys and girls, both smoked everybody, which is kind of what we were expecting and fortunately they did,” Clark said.

The relay events, which count for twice the points of an individual event, propelled the team into contention with the larger clubs. Most teams in the conference compete with 80-100 swimmers while Madisonville maintains 60-65.

Also at the meet were two clubs from Bowling Green and one from Hopkinsville that use facilities that are operated year-round.

“It’s very difficult because you’re going against kids and that’s their primary sport,” Clark said.

The Sharks also had to battle with a more difficult scoring compared to their other conference championship meet. Instead of advancing the top 12 swimmers to the final event, only six swimmers were given the chance to earn points in the championship round.

Taking the different scoring system and rigid competition into account, Clark lauded his club and its performance.

“Every swimmer, I felt, contributed in this meet more so than the last one,” he said. “Every swimmer dropped time in this last meet from their personal best... It makes me very proud of their efforts.”