Prep swimmers enjoy rivalry

Oct. 1, 2006

By DARRELL L. BREESE/ Frontiersman

PALMER - The Colony and Palmer High School swimming teams have one thing in common - they both practice in the Palmer Pool every day after school. Most of the swimmers on both teams are friends and enjoy each others company.

But when it's time to compete the friendships are left in the locker room and its every swimmer for themself.

Friday the intensity of the rivalry between the two teams in the pool was dwarfed by the Potato Bowl game between Palmer and Wasilla being played on the football field, just yards from the Palmer Pool. When the meet ended both teams were winners, Palmer won the boys' title with 104 points, and the Colony girls edged the Moose by eight points to claim the girls' title.

&#8220Oh yeah, we wanted to win this meet more than any other,” Palmer swim team captain Alex Roy said. &#8220But I have a lot of friends who swim for Colony, and I want them to do their best too.”

&#8220It's definitely a rivalry, but it's not the same as football or basketball,” Colony captain Kalli Brettrager said. &#8220We always want to beat Palmer and even Wasilla, but I would call it a friendly rivalry. I don't think there will be any bragging at practice on Monday.”

Roy displayed his desire to help the Moose triumph, by erasing a five yard gap in the 200 freestyle, eventually giving Palmer a five yard lead. Hit big move helped propel the Moose relay team to a narrow win over the Knights.

Brettrager took a more methodic approach to scoring a win for the Colony girls.

&#8220I just kept focused on swimming negative splits,” she said of her win in the 500 yard freestyle. &#8220The race is so long that you really can't focus on your opponents as much as you do on swimming your own race.”

Brettrager's focus allowed her to distance herself from a pair of Palmer swimmers, eventually winning by nearly two lengths of the pool.

Palmer senior Michael Provo gave the Moose a boost toward winning the boy's title with is victory in the one-meter diving competition. Provo collected 180.45 points for his six dives, scoring a maximum seven points toward the boys team

title.

Swimmers from Valdez High School kept the meet from being a true duel for pool bragging rights between the local teams.

&#8220They're coach called us last week to see if they could join us for the meet,” Colony swim coach Dawn Brettrager said. &#8220They were coming to town for the Bartlett Invitational Saturday, so we said why not.”

Like any group of good Buccaneers, Valdez stole away the girls team title, besting the Knights by four points.

The Bucs took advantage of re-race of the 200 medley relay, after a protest regarding the starters commands, to improve from third place to first and vault past Colony for the overall girls title.

&#8220It was the best way to resolve the confusion,” coach Brettrager said. &#8220Half the teams didn't start when they were supposed to initially, so holding the race again made sense.”

Wins in the 200 and 400 freestyle relays helped boost the Palmer boys to victory.

&#8220We really focused on the relays,” Roy said. &#8220Winning those races meant twice the points for us.”

The Moose outscored Colony 36-10 in the two relays helping propel them to the top on the boys team points. The 26 point difference was slightly above the 20 point margin of victory they finished with over the Knights.

Contact Darrell L. Breese at 352-2267 or at darrell.breese@

frontiersman.com.