Piranhas swim strong

Matt Unrau

Valley Press

It was a good weekend for the Plains Piranhas as their swimmers survived in 25 out of 30 events to advance to the finals round on Sunday at the Bitterroot Invitational in Hamilton.

The Piranhas sports 11 swimmers who have a long future ahead of them, as the eldest in the program is only 13 years old.

Head Coach Ian Stokes, who grew up swimming in the program and is now in his first year as head coach was pleased with the results from the first meet.

“I’m definitely happy with how everyone did,” says Stokes.

The team is anchored by its three eldest girls Keely Benson, Mahala Harris and Danika Whitcomb.

Keely was the sole Piranha who placed first at the meet by winning the 200 IM with a time of 3 minutes and 17.02 seconds.

It is an exhausting race as the swimmer has to switch between strokes for a total of eight laps in the pool. Late in the race Keely could see the competition beside her and knew she had a chance to win and was very please with her time.

“I’m proud of myself and happy I did that,” says Keely. Although, she won this race she thinks she can still improve on her time as she has only been practicing for two weeks.

“I think I can shave off at least two seconds,” says Keely. She goes on to explain that she will probably find these two seconds in her freestyle stroke at the end of the race.

Keely also placed third in the 50 fly and 50 freestyle with times of 38.70 and 32.63 seconds respectively.

Mahala scored a pair of second place finishes in the 50 yard butterfly with a time of 35.26 seconds and in the 100 yard freestyle with a time of one minutes and 10.25 seconds.

She also placed third in the 200 IM with a time of 3 minutes and 17.18 seconds.

Danika rounded out the medal winners for the Piranhas as she scored a second place finish in the 50 yard backstroke with a  time of 41.07 seconds and a third place finish in the 50 yard freestyle with a time of 34.75 seconds.

Their next meet is this weekend at Plains.