Our Granddaughter, the Swimmer

Both of our Colorado grandchildren are great swimmers. They are members of the Foothills Recreation Center swim team. Earlier this month, they each swam laps for 1.5 hours to raise money for their swim team.  Almost every weekend, the family attends one or more swim meets.  Here is a photo of the two--aren't they beautiful/handsome?














Kylie is a freshman at Heritage High School in Littleton and she also swims on that team.  John has practice after school several days a week.  Kylie practices with both teams, each day at 5:30 am before school, as well as after school.  They have both competed at the state level for the recreational league.  Kylie also went to the multi-state Zone meet last summer.

Last weekend, her high school team competed in the Smokey Hill Invitational Meet in Aurora.  The meet was covered in a newspaper article in the Aurora Sentinel and it talked mostly about the Smokey Hill team.  However, Kylie had done such an outstanding job at the meet, her name is mentioned several times.  She is obviously a real force to be reckoned with in the high school swimming area.  We can't wait to see where she goes in the future.

Here is a copy of the newspaper story.  I have highlighted Kylie's name in red.

Smoky Hill’s Gaby Antunez, left, Melanie Vasina, center, and Jianna Walker react after they teamed with anchor leg Julia Song to set a meet record in the 200 yard freestyle relay at the 24th annual Smoky Hill Invitational on Jan. 17, 2015, at Smoky Hill High School. The foursome clocked a time of 1 minute, 41.27 seconds, to beat the standard of 1:41.48 set last year by Song, Vasina, Antunez and graduated Kelsey Gaul. (Courtney Oakes/Aurora Sentinel)

AURORA | With a disqualification in the opening event of the night, things could have gone south fast for the Smoky Hill girls swim team at Saturday’s Smoky Hill Invitational.
But coach Scott Cohen’s Buffaloes left the slow start in the dust and packed plenty of fast on their way to second place in the 24th annual event.
Senior Julia Song and sophomore Jordyn Richey each won events individually and the 200 yard freestyle relay team of Song, fellow senior Melanie Vasina, junior Gaby Antunez and sophomore Jianna Walker broke Smoky Hill’s own meet record in the event to help Smoky Hill rack up 377 points. Heritage, which saw freshman Kylie Andrews have a big day, won the meet with 460.
“I’m real proud of the kids, they kept swimming tough despite a little setback,” said Cohen, whose team finished third last season and seventh in 2013. “It was a good lesson. We could have shut it down a little bit, but we stepped it up instead. …We swam a lot better than we were seeded.”
One of a few seniors on a pretty young team, Song came away proud of how the Buffs rebounded.
“It was a rough start, but we didn’t let it affect us too much,” Song said. “We were a little sad about it, but we moved past it and swam really well the rest of the meet.”
Song played a big role in Smoky Hill’s performance, as she won the 50 freestyle in 24.63, finished as the runner-up in the 100 freestyle to Andrews — who set the meet record in the event with a blazing time of 52.33 seconds — anchored on the record-setting 200 free relay team the fourth-place 400 free relay.
Andrews’ performance certainly caught the attention of Song, who is likely to see her again in the 100 freestyle at the Class 5A state meet Feb. 13-14 in Fort Collins.
“That girl did so well, she’s so fast,” Song said. “It’s going to be cool to see how fast she goes by the time she gets to her senior year. …I did well and we’re not tapered yet, so I’m excited for state.”
Richey’s phenomenal day included the 100 breaststroke championship, which came with a time of 1:08.74, nearly two seconds faster than her prelim time in the morning. The sophomore also finished second in the 200 individual medley in a 2-3 finish with freshman Natalie Rotondo for a strong early boost for Smoky Hill.
After she touched the wall and saw her win on the scoreboard, Richey thrust her arms in the air in celebration. She hugged just about everybody she could find once she got out of the water as her time put her in range of the 1:06 she hopes to reach in the coming weeks.
“I was jumping around in the hallway after; I’d never won anything before, so I was so excited,” said Richey, who was also pleased with a five-second drop in her IM time before upcoming taper.
“I was exhausted all week last week and rolling my muscles out every day, then came to this week just ready to go,” she added.
Walker subbed in for graduated Kelsey Gaul on the record-setting relay and also earned her Class 5A state cut in the 100 freestyle, while freshman Vickie Liu punched her state ticket in the 500 freestyle.
Paced by sophomore Elma Spahic’s fourth-place individual finish in the 50 freestyle and a fourth-place 200 freestyle relay team, Cherokee Trail earned 115 points to finish in 10th place, while diver Indiya Williams’ fourth-place finish boosted Eaglecrest to a 13th-place total of 51 points.
Heritage won the meet-opening 200 medley relay — the event Smoky Hill was disqualified from for a swimmer deemed to have left the blocks early — and led from start to finish.
Andrews set meet records in the 100 freestyle and 100 backstroke and swam on the Eagles’ winning 200 medley and 400 freestyle relay teams. Sophomore Katherine Harston also won twice for Heritage and Chaparral placed third with 325 points despite not winning a single event.