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Tigers undeterred by 111-70 home defeat

ADAM BOFFEY
summit daily news
Summit Daily/Kristin Skvorc
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FARMER’S KORNER ” Losing is never fun. It’s sort of easy to swallow, however, when your chances of winning are mathematically impossible.

The Summit High School boys swimming and diving team knew going into Wednesday’s home dual with 5A Green Mountain that it would finish second, no matter what it did.

“Green Mountain had 25 swimmers,” Summit coach Mike Rathgeber said. “Even if we had won every event, they would still have won overall. There’s was no pressure on us to win because we couldn’t win.”



The Rams won Wednesday’s meet as expected, defeating Summit 111-70.

Rather than become discouraged by their lack of numbers, the Tigers used Wednesday’s dual to prepare for the future.



“We tried some kids in some new events,” Rathgeber said. “We wanted to see where we were at for leagues and for next season.”

Most of the Tigers didn’t seem to mind the change of pace.

Freshman Tom Sawyer, for example, won the 200 free with a time of 2 minutes, 5.1 seconds. It was the first time he swam the event all year.

“We kept Tom out of the 200 IM because he’s already qualified for state four times over in that event,” Rathgeber said. “We wanted to see how he would do in the 200 free instead.”

Although Sawyer said he enjoyed swimming something different on Wednesday, it will likely be an exception to the rule.

“I might swim it once more in our last dual, but that’s it,” said Sawyer. “I’m pretty much focusing on the three events I’ve already qualified in.”

Sawyer has thus far qualified for state in the 200 IM, 100 fly and 400 free relay.

Sawyer’s victory in the 200 free was one of his four wins on the day. He also took the 100 fly, and was part of the 200 medley and 200 free relay teams. The four-win effort marked another one of several field days for Sawyer this season.

Distance swimmer Marshall Snead was another Tiger who strayed from his normal routine.

“I haven’t swam the shorter events since I was a freshman,” the junior captain said. “I wanted to compare my times from today to my times back then. I dropped seven seconds off my 200 IM time without swimming it at all in two years. It was pretty cool.”

Snead also took first in the 200 medley relay, fourth in the 200 IM and third in the 100 breast. He was joined in the 200 medley relay by Sawyer, Josh Gammel and Andrew Marshall.

“It was a lot of fun,” said senior captain Gammel, who also won the 50 and 100 frees. “I haven’t gotten to swim the 200 since my freshman year. Coach asked us before the meet, ‘Who wants to try a new event?’ and it worked out well.”

Freshman Luke Fatora made his diving debut for the Tigers on Wednesday. Fatora scored 110 points to take an impressive second-place finish as the only Summit diver in action.

“I figured I would probably finish last,” Fatora said. “I was thinking that would have been OK because it was a learning experience.”

When the season began, Fatora was a true rookie.

“I knew nothing about diving,” he said. “I didn’t even know the proper way to jump off the board.”

“I’m glad he had a chance to compete this season,” diving coach Shannon Hoffmann said. “It gives him a little exposure and experience as a freshman. We’ll get some more difficulty into his dives over the next few years.”

The Tigers plan to begin tapering their workouts on Monday.

Rathgeber says he hopes the upcoming taper will help his 200 medley relay team to qualify for state. The foursome has already come within a single second of meeting the qualifying standard.

Summit will host its final dual of the season, May 5 against Standley Lake.

Adam Boffey can be contacted at (970) 668-3998, ext. 13631, or at aboffey@summitdaily.com.


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