Saturday’s Blanchet Invitational at the Kroc Center in Salem marked the end of the regular season for the Tillamook swim team.
Members of the team gave their latest best efforts in the pool and now set their sights on the championship portion of the season. Starting Friday, February 2, at the Tillamook YMCA, the Cheesemakers will host their Cowapa League rivals for what looks to be a very exciting meet (results not available at press time).
In Salem, the Cheesemakers faced seven other teams and saw improvement up and down the lineup heading into February. I was really hoping for a big meet with excellent times and I thought we got them.
The Tillamook boy’s medley team of Landon Munly, Jack Sappington, Wyatt Swart and Brandon Hudgeon started the meet off with a bang. Munly swam his best lead-off leg of the season and got the team off and into first before handing it over to Sappington who holds one of the best times in the state in the breaststroke.
Wyatt Swart did his job and swam a strong leg, but a Molalla swimmer passed him prior to Hudgeon taking the reins. Hudgeon raced down the the pool, passed the Molalla swimmer and comfortably won by almost 2 seconds. It was his fastest anchor leg of the season.
Hudgeon has shown a propensity for big comebacks this season, especially over the last few weeks. While Hudgeon has carried the anchor leg on the medley all season, we found that moving him to third on the 400 relay made more sense, so Sappington has more of a rest as she swims the 100 breaststroke immediately before the relay.
Hudgeon has been taken his sprinting to the next level. Last week at the Molalla Invitational he was down 15 yards in his relay leg and brought the team back to give Sappington a slight lead and the team finished 2nd overall in the 13 team invite and beat third place by six seconds. Tuesday night in Astoria Hudgeon made up 18 of a 20-yard deficit and the team fell just short.
However, he found himself in a big hole again at Blanchet, this time to District 3 counterpart Taft. Hudgeon came storming back from twenty yards and pulled within a yard of the Taft swimmer before Sappington finished the comeback and bested Taft’s star swimmer by almost a second.
It’s the kind of effort that is getting people’s attention, not just for Brandon, but for the team. Coaches continue to come up and talk about how impressed they are with the Tillamook swim team and the improvement they have seen throughout the year. Brandon exemplifies what this program is about, swimmers being willing to do what it takes to be successful and giving great efforts day in and day out along the way.
Other highlights included Sappington’s double win in the 50 free and 100 breaststroke, both personal records. He beat a Silverton swimmer who was undefeated on the season in the event. Munly finished in third in the 100 backstroke in another personal record on the year. Wyatt Swart had a huge time in the 200 IM today dropping under 3 minutes in only his second attempt. Diego Velazquez, Cyrus Werner, Tristan Valencia, Ethan Jackson all had multiple personal records on the day and are providing much needed depth moving into February’s important meets.
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