The Golden Dolphins have started to wrap up the swim season with an amazing performance at Regionals, which was held in Kelowna this year. Regionals is a competition where only the top 3 in each division will qualify to attend Provincials taking place in Kamloops from August 15–17.
The Dolphins have seven individual qualifiers for Provincials including, Rochelle Bertrand, Josh Hiraoka, Zara Johnson, Emily King, Hannah LaRoy, Kaelan Malaka, and Hayley Plonka.
Our youngest swimmer Kaelan Malaka, qualified in three of his individual events placing second or third and a fifth place finish in 50 Free. Due to Kaelan’s high performance at this weekends meet he has been selected to swim Freestyle in the Okanagan’s Regional Relay at Provincials.
Zara Johnson had an amazing weekend getting best times and placing on the podium in all of her events. Her biggest achievement was in her 50 Freestyle, which qualified her to represent the Okanagan Region as a swimmer in the Regional Relay at Provincials.
Exceeding expectations was Josh Hiraoka, who made huge improvements in all his swims, with the biggest one being 50 Fly where he was only .05 seconds off the Regional Meet record set in 1997. Josh also qualified as the Freestyle leg of the Okanagan Regional Relay for Provincials. Emily King placed second in the Region for her 50 and 100 Fly qualifying her to compete in Provincials.
Making best times, Hannah LaRoy took off 4 seconds in the 200 IM getting her under the 2:50 mark and also took 3 seconds off in her best event, 100 Breaststroke and placed third in the Region with qualified her to swim in Provincials.
First time individual qualifier, Hayley Plonka, crushed her 200 IM time taking off 8 seconds, totaling a whopping 15 seconds off her previous seasons best time which she had been striving for since the beginning of the season. Rochelle Bertrand had a goal to get under the 31-second mark on her 50 free and finally broke it with .7 seconds off her time qualifying her for Provincials.
Along with our individual qualifiers are also some Relay qualifiers, starting with a surprise from the Division 5 girls in the Medley relay, which included, Brenda-lee Dondaneau, Elyssia McClean, Anna Sutter, and Marika Sutter. Another Relay qualifier was the Division 4 boys in the Freestyle relay, which included, Kaelan Malaka, Thorin Malaka, Dallas Mason-Jones, and Enzo Soret. Qualifying for both Medley and Freestyle relay were the Division 6 girls, Zara Johnson, Emily King, Hannah LaRoy and Hayley Plonka.
All other swimmers who attended the Regional Meet this weekend did an amazing job and managed to achieve best times in many events and showed all their hard work from this season. Although their season will now be wrapping up, they all look forward to next year where they will attempt to achieve even greater goals.
Coaches Caprice Rosentreter and Hailey Kehler are extremely proud of all the swimmers this season and look forward to Provincials where they hope to see some great swims and bring home some medals to proudly represent Golden.
Both coaches would like to thank the parents and the community of Golden for their support and hard work allowing us to flourish and prosper this swim season.
