Document text
FRIDAY February 6, 2004 - Subscribe - Contact Us - Rate Card Valley&State Backpage O&E Sports Archives Classifieds Faith&Beliefs Obituaries Revels January 12, 2004 Grizz swim teams show off By Jennifer Squires Ashland Daily Tidings For five and a half hours, the best prep swimmers in the area converged at the Southern Oregon University pool for the second-annual All-Rogue Valley Invitational on Saturday afternoon. When the water calmed, two things became very clear. First, the Ashland boys' team looks like the best team in the Southern Oregon Conference this year. Secondly, when the Grizz girls are at full strength, they should be able to hold off North Medford and fight with Roseburg for the league title. Though there's more than a month span between Saturday's meet and the conference championships in mid-February, the performances turned in by the Grizz swimmers at the All-Rogue event illustrate just how deep the boys' and girls' teams are. "I think our boys demonstrated today that they really dominate the whole conference," said Grizz head coach Neil Foley. "An example of that is our fourth fastest 500 free swimmer was sixth overall, so our four best boy came in above all but two boys in the field." The boys blew the other eight teams out of the water, winning the meet by 134 points. Meanwhile, North Medford edged out the Grizz girls by 24 points, 220 to 196, to capture the team race. "There were some good swims," Foley said. "There were some really competitive teams here." Breaking through Fifteen of 22 meet records went down the drain on Saturday. The All-Rouge meet is just in its sophomore year. "This is a new meet, so that's common," Foley explained. "Oftentimes, the records fall." Ashland swimmers broke five records. North Medford and Phoenix teams each earned three new records. Junior Travis Bishop had a hand in all three records the Ashland boys' team set. First, Bishop won the 200-yard individual medley in 2:12.11, a full six seconds faster than teammate Geoff Berteau's former record of 2:18.38. Berteau finished second this year, also dipping under the record time with a mark of 2:18.05. Next, Bishop won the 100-yard breaststroke by five seconds. His 1:07.48 mark sent the old record of 1:09.81 out the window. To close out the meet, Bishop teamed up with Nick Benedetti, Ben Dawson and Arron Nelson to get the record in the 400-yard freestyle relay with their time of 3:37.33. On the girls' side, sophomore Ashley Roda won the first individual event of the afternoon, setting the record in the 200-yard free with her time of 2:09.90. At the end of the day, Roda anchored the 400-yard free relay to the win and new meet record. The Grizz swam stroke-for-stroke with North Medford through the first 350 meters of the race, then Roda made her push. Ashland won in 4:05.80, almost a second ahead of the Black Tornado and six seconds better than the record the Grizz set last year. "I'd say the highlight of the day was that girls' relay," Foley said. "The come-from-behind victory was real sweet." Down the road The performance impressed Foley, but the Grizzlies are capable of a lot more, he said. "For us, we had two key girls missing today," Foley explained. "Jessie Bright would have scored very high in the IM and the breaststroke and Ursula Barton would have scored for us in the 200 free. With both of these girls missing, we couldn't quite hold North Medford off." Still, the results Roda and senior Michelle Smith turned in - Smith came in second in both the 50-yard and the 100-yard freestyle events on top of swimming legs on the 200- and 400-yard freestyle relays - illustrated how capable of qualifying for the state meet these girls are. Add to that sophomore Corrina Morrison and freshman Faith King showed, and the team is heavy with talent and potential. "Corrina and Faith are brand new," Foley explained. "They scored very will in the 500-free, which is the most grueling event." For the boys, both Bishop and Nelson were double-winners and raced on the victorious 200- and 400-yard relays. "Another great performance was Andrew Del Carlo, making sure we won the 200 medley relay with his lifetime best," Foley said. "We easily won all of the boys' relays today." Sophomore Ben Dawson contributed a second-place finish in the 500-yard free and a third-place effort in the 200 free. DailyTidings.com Home Page Valley&State | Backpage | O&E | Sports | Archives | Weather | Classifieds Columnists | Faith&Beliefs | Obituaries | Revels | Subscribe | Contact Us Copyright 2004 Ashland Daily Tidings and Ottaway Newspapers All Rights Reserved Site Search: A new improved archive search is coming! Look for it in mid-February! .:Advertisements:. RESOURCES - ODOT Road Cams