The second Metro East Conference meet for the Raiders was held at John Glenn Middle School in Maplewood at their newly constructed Aquatic Center. Hastings dominated the meet, winning 95-67 over North St. Paul.
Hastings took first in 11 of the 12 events, the only event Hastings took second in was the 100 freestyle. Not only did Hastings dominate the top spots in 11 events, but they also took at a minimum the top two spots in each event they won and several of the events they took the top three spots.
From Coach Katie McAlpin:
We got to really mix up the line up. It is always so fun to do that and see the girls swim in an event that they normally wouldn’t swim.
The swimmers of the meet were Emery Malm and Emilia Krause. Emery had a personal best time in all of her events. She cut 3.5 seconds off of her personal best 100 free time. Emilia had personal best times in all of her events as well. She cut 17 seconds off her 100 free, leading off the 400 free relay, from the her middle school season in the spring.
Diver of the meet was Izzy Green,” McAlpin said. She worked very hard for a few days of practice to achieve her goal score of breaking 100.
Coming up Thursday we have our first home meet vs Two Rivers at 6:00pm. Tuesday we will be cheering on the CC team for their meet. They are our partner team. Each season we are partnered with another raiders team to go out and show our support at one of their competitions. Cross country has been fun. We go out there with our cowbells and make some noise!
Part of the mixing up what the ladies do at a meet like that is also letting swimmers dive. Izzy Green is not a diver and diving is not easy, to score over 100 points with only a week of practice is impressive.
Visiting the John Glenn Middle School’s beautiful new swimming and diving facility is another prime example of what a school should have for their swimming and diving team, with one exception, the lighting is, well, for lack of a better term, weird. It feels really dark and dreary even though the lighting is supposed to highlight the action in the pool, it is a little distracting, but the Raiders did not seem to mind. Soon, Hastings will be the only team in the conference with an outdated facility.
As Coach McAlpin noted, the girls will host Two Rivers at 6:00 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 12. Then the girls will make their third trip to John Glenn to take on Mahtomedi on Sept. 19 at 6:00 p.m.