Swimmers meet for South contest
by Jason Hollins, reporter

    Men and women competed in freestyle swimming and breaststroke when South Campus held its first swim meet in a number of years last week.

    “I had a number of students in my swimming class who said they would like to compete,” Tim Johnson, swimming instructor, said.

    The men took to the water first in the 50-meter freestyle. John Short dominated this race, finishing 20 seconds ahead of the second-place finisher Adam Hampson. Short swam his lap in just over 31 seconds.

    Lorena Gallegos and Beth Sellers raced in the women’s 50-meter freestyle.

    This race was close with just three seconds separating the two. The suspense built up until the last few meters. Sellers pulled out all the stops to win with a time of 35.54 seconds, followed by Gallegos with 38.82 seconds.

    While the others rested to prepare for other races, Shawn Mott and Short raced in the men’s 100-meter freestyle. Johnson warned the swimmers not to get burned out by going too fast at the start. Short paced himself well and once again took home first place in 1 minute and 30 seconds. Adam Mott turned in a respectable time of 2:21.

    The women’s 100-meter freestyle was also very competitive. Joni Stotts joined Sellers and Gallegos to make things that much more unpredictable. All three of the swimmers paced themselves very well, knowing just when to give that final burst of power to finish strong. Beth Sellers finished first in 1:22, followed closely by Gallegos with a time of 1:29. Stotts came in third in 2:02.

    The men’s breaststroke competition brought suspense. D. J. Piercefield joined the race along with Hampson. Between the men, this was the closest race of the day. Until the last button had been hit on the stopwatch, no one knew who had won. After the silence had ceased, Hampson was announced the winner over Piercefield by just one full second in the 50-meter race. Hampson posted a time of 50 seconds flat, Piercefield 51.9.

    The women provided a race just as close between Gallegos, Sellers and Stotts. Unbelievably, in the 50-meter breaststroke two women finished within two-thousandths of a second. Gallegos took first place in 50.9 seconds. Sellars touched the wall just after, in 51:01. Stotts stayed close throughout the race finishing in 1:01:0.
The final set of races, the 100-meter breaststroke, began shortly after everyone took a breath to discuss the close times.

    “You don't really race the clock; you just go out there to win and worry about time later,” Short said.

    Most of the swimmers had begun to wear down by the last race. Shawn Mott, Hampson and Piercefield gathered what they had left. Hampson came out of the water on top in 2 minutes and 12 seconds. Second place went to Piercefield in 2:28 and third to Shawn Mott in 3:47.

    On the women’s side, Stotts and Gallegos put together one more race. Gallegos finished first in 2:06, and Stotts finished strong in 2:28.

    “I was happy with the decent turn out this year,” Johnson said, as he closed out the swim meet by presenting t-shirts to the winners.