Palmer out swims Knights and Mariners

The Mat-Su Valley swim teams jumped into the start of the 2018 high school season on Saturday at the Colony Invite held at the Palmer Pool.

The meet, which in the past has only consisted of the three Valley teams, invited Homer and Valdez to the competition pool this year.

Palmer High School ended up winning overall with a score of 216 points, with Colony coming in second at 164 points.

Palmer’s girls team led the girls’ events with a 35-point lead, and top Palmer swimmer, Gretchen Snelders, who won the 200-yard medley and the 100 backstroke, is feeling positive about her races.

“It felt really good, but my legs died, and my whole body kind of went numb and then I saw this girl in the corner of my eye and I was like, ‘You’re not beating me.’ So I went faster,” she said of her backstroke event.

Snelders recently came back to the pool after a five-month break from the pool.

Colony sophomore Konner Kolberg won the men’s 200 medley with a time of 2:10.77, and his teammate, Alexis Mattson, took first in the 100 breastroke at 1:12.23. Their coach, Patrick Penoyar, had given the team a two-and-a-half hour practice the night before, but was content with the performance of his top group of swimmers considering their levels of exhaustion.

“I’m super excited about how Alexis is swimming in the breastroke, Taylor’s doing an excellent job making some corrections there. Kolberg is doing fantastic,” Penoyar said.

Christine Morgan, coach of Palmer, is feeling confident about the performance of all her swimmers, but particularly enjoyed watching her girls swim the 400 freestyle relay.

The Moose relay, made up of Lindsay Musgrave, Ashtyn Petersen, Savannah Geffken and Snelders, won the event with a time of 4:09.57.

Morgan also looks forward to watching one of her new swimmers, Ellyse Russell, who recently moved to the Valley from Wyoming.

“She’s got good times and I think that record might be coming down off the board,” Morgan said, referring to the 400 freestyle relay.

Another notable swim came from Camren Hancock who won the 50 free with a time of 22.37 and the 100 breast with 1:04.60.

Head coach of Wasilla, Hadley Remele, was happy with all the Saturday swims.

“I’m really happy with where we’re at right now and I think it’s going to be a super successful season for them,” said Remele.

The diving for Colony invite was held the night before, and Jayde Chan of Wasilla took home first for the women with 183.65 points and Eli Krozel of Colony led the men with 210.85 points.

“It was a good first meet. We got to see competition and just tried to have a good time,” said Jerry Godden, dive coach for Palmer.