Spring break caught up to the Durango High School boys swim team in its first meet back.
The Demons lost a dual meet to the District 51 Gryphons 188.5-90.5 on Saturday at the Fort Lewis College Pool. District 51 won 11 of the 12 events and fielded a much larger team than DHS.
“I know a lot of my guys didn’t swim a lot over spring break, so it’s a tough one. You can lose a lot of fitness in 10 days. (Saturday) it showed toward the end of the meet, where some people were a little tired,” DHS head coach Tom Joyner said. “And these meets are fast. You get out and turn back around and do something fast and hard again. It’s not easy, but, certainly, I would have liked to see them in a little better shape.”
Ben Clark gave the Demons their only win of the day, taking first in the 100-yard backstroke in 1 minute, 10.91 seconds.
DHS junior Ben Miller grabbed three second-place finishes, two individually and one as a member of a relay. He finished second in the diving event with a score of 143 in his first dives of the season.
“We’ve basically just been working on foundational technique,” DHS diving coach Mark Fleming said. “He was capable of competing earlier this season but wanted to get his technique dialed in. It paid off.”
Miller also was second in the 100-yard butterfly in 1:04.61 and anchored Durango’s 400-yard freestyle relay with Ben Clark, Jason Clark and Tommy Pannell that finished second in 4:11.01.
“My races weren’t too great, but I didn’t have as much warm-up time as I should have,” said Miller, son of Deborah and Richard Miller. “I spent most of my warm-up diving, so I didn’t get to warm up swimming much.”
Meet organizers decided to host the diving event first to get it out of the way because there only were two divers. After that, Durango’s 200-yard medley relay of Reuben Barnes, Sterling Gates, Iain McCourt and Robert Smith took third in 2:13.72.
Ben Clark was third in the 50-yard freestyle in 26.93 seconds.
Pannell finished third in the 100-yard freestyle in 54.47 and tied for second in the 100-yard backstroke in 1:11.58.
McCourt took third in the 500-yard freestyle in 6:04.44.
Smith was third in the 100-yard breaststroke at 1:22.65, and Barnes finished right behind him in fourth at 1:33.36.
“I saw some good swimming. Not necessarily great times but good technique,” Joyner said.
Saturday’s meet was the Demons’ third of the season, and they still have a ways to go before the league championships and the state meet in early May.
Between now and then, Joyner will have his team focused on endurance.
“What I’m training them for is to be able to do these kinds of meets and then turn around again and do another all out,” he said. “Everybody’s got pretty good technique, but I think that comes with training.”
kgrabowski@ durangoherald.com
