Summit swim and dive team splashes into holiday break with 2nd place finish at home meet | SummitDaily.com
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Summit swim and dive team splashes into holiday break with 2nd place finish at home meet

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Cody Jones
  

Aila Harmala swims in the 100-yard butterfly event during the Summit Invite swim and dive meet held at Summit High School in Breckenridge on Dec. 16.
John Hanson/For the Summit Daily News

In its second meet of the season, the Summit High School swim and dive program notched a top-three finish at the December Summit Invite Friday, Dec. 16, at Summit High School.

A week after placing first at the Gunnison Cowboy Invite, the Summit girls swim and dive team placed second at its first home meet of the season. 

Summit scored a total of 222 points. It was enough to beat out Gunnison High School in third place by 59 points but not enough to surpass the 413 points scored by the first-place winning Glenwood Springs High School.

Summit was once again led by powerful relays and individual performances that cracked into the top 10.

The Tigers got off to a great start in the 200-yard medley relay, placing second place overall in a time of 2:06.51. 

The relay performance set the team up for a fantastic showing in one of the team’s strongest events — the 200-yard freestyle race. Summit put three swimmers in the top 10 in the event with Ashley Leidal placing third in a time of 2:16.19

Leidal was followed by Kaslo Bocksch in sixth with a time of 2:21.73 and sophomore Aila Harmala in seventh place with a final time of 2:21.97.

“I feel like personally I did really well in that race,” Harmala said of her seventh-place finish. “I feel like it was a good time considering it was the same time I got last year at conference. I was pretty excited about that. The team did really well overall. Kaslo did very well swimming that race.”

Summit continued to show its experience and skill in the freestyle races by putting four athletes within the top 10 of a 44-woman field in the 50-yard freestyle race. Bocksch had the highest finish, placing third overall to score 10 points for her team.

Hannah Crowe finished in sixth, Pelham Wagenseil placed seventh and Izzy Rolfe finished in eighth. 

Leidal, Bocksch Crowe and Wagenseil swam to an outstanding second-place performance in the 200-yard freestyle relay. The quartet finished the race in a time of 1:56.08 which was under the team’s seed time and less than six seconds behind Glenwood Springs.

“I feel like it’s really good training,” Harmala said of the success in the freestyle races. “We have a new (assistant) coach this year, Harry(Canales). I feel like that is what is aiding us in doing so well in the races.”

Adie Micciulli opens up her pike and spots her entry during the dive portion of the Summit Invite swim and dive meet held at Summit High School in Breckenridge on Dec. 16.
John Hanson/For the Summit Daily News

Izzy Rowe and Claudia Pinillos were the next group of Tigers to place within the top 10 in the 200-yard individual medley race. Rowe placed second overall and Pinillos finished in ninth. 

Rowe went on to later place second in the 100-yard backstroke, finishing the race in 1:11.25 to finish a little under four seconds behind Glenwood Springs’ Bennett Jones.

Adie Micciulli placed fourth in the 1-meter dive. As Summit’s only diver on the day, Micciulli scored a total of 119.17 points from the judges. 

The Summit swim and dive team will now take a break from competing ahead of the holidays. 

Summit will resume competition on Jan. 9, 2023, when the team hosts its second swim meet of the season at Summit High School. The meet will serve as a dual meet between Summit and Conifer High School. The meet‘s start time has yet to be announced. 

“I am looking forward to hopefully qualifying for state and the whole team doing well,” Harmala said. “I feel like it is going to be a good season.”

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