More than 230 swimmers from all over Vancouver Island gathered at the Cowichan Aquatic Centre in late February for the Duncan Stingrays’ annual Spring Break Invitational.
The Stingrays themselves had 32 swimmers in the field, including three first-time competitors: Roselyn Baird, Erika Morgan and Emmy Hoffman.
Two Duncan Swim Team records were broken during the meet.
Mary Paridaen vanVeen broke the female 10 and under 100m butterfly with a time of one minute, 20.25 seconds. The previous mark of 1:21.60 had been held by current Stingrays head coach Leanne Sirup (then Wilkinson) since 1986.
Dylan Kruger, 12, set a new record in the male 11/12 100m individual medley, his time of 1:12.85 edging out the old mark of 1:14.34 held by Oliver Castle since Dec. 21, 2013.
More than half of the Stingrays swimmers earned personal bests in all of their races, including Paridaen vanVeen, Dylan Kruger, Colbie Hall, Ziad Lossing, Ryca Stiwich, Kaylee Adair, Lily Cochrane, Ty Dahlstrom, Ava Morgan, Allie Bell, Olin Dahlstrom, Megan Kruger, Mya Smith, Cailine Keirstead, Robyn Zinkan, Howard Lo and Mathias Bell.
Five of the competitors earned PBs in all but one race: Emma Roll, Rahma Lossing, Carley Battie, James Ogihara-Kertz and Montana Prystupa.
Of the remaining swimmers, Jeremy Kissack had three personal bests, Sophie Paridaen vanVeen had two, and Finn Dahlstrom, Tiegan McDevitt and Megan Lewis had one PB each.
Fourteen swimmers challenged themselves with new events, including Dahlstrom, Hall, Ziad Lossing, Stiwich, Adair, Baird, Cochrane, Allie Bell, Rahma Lossing, Morgan, Battie, Hoffman, McDevitt and Sophie Paridaen vanVeen.