Piranhas bite off a third place finish at home meet

Genevieve Deschamps, 7, gets ready to take off in the backstroke for the 8 & under girls 100 meter medley relay on Sunday at the Plains Invitational Meet.

Chayton Lulack, 13, of Plains swims the 13-14 boys 50 meter freestyle final on Sunday at the Plains Invitational.

by Melanie Crowson/Valley Press
| June 27, 2012 9:41 AM

Chayton Lulack, 13, of Plains swims the 13-14 boys 50 meter freestyle final on Sunday at the Plains Invitational.

PLAINS – Piranhas Swim Team showed other Western Montana Federation swim teams that piranhas are greater in numbers this past weekend at their home swim meet, where they took third overall for the first time in over a decade.

Swimmers aged from 5 to 17 from towns such as Plains, Hot Springs, Thompson Falls, and Deer Park, Texas, comprise the team of 45. For the home meet, 34 athletes competed in the prelims on Saturday.

Of the 34, 28 of them advanced to Sunday finals. At the finals, points were scored and personal bests were made for the school of Piranha swimmers.

Many Piranhas were high point scorers of their age groups, based on their individual events; such as Makiya DuBois, 8, of Plains with 42 points, Darian Cremer, 8, of Hot Springs with 27 points, and Haley Stewart, 8, of Plains with 19 points for the girls 8 & under age group. Matthew Daems-Woods, 7, of Plains had 14 points and Noah Cremer, 6, of Hot Springs had 11 points in the boys 8 & under age group. Grace Alexander, 10, of Plains scored 40 points and Natalee Deschamps, 10, of Plains scored 18 points in the 9-10 girls age group. Jacelynn DuBois, 11, of Plains scored 27 points and Danika Whitcomb, 13, of Plains scored 30 points. On the boys’ side of the scoreboard, Douglas Damschen, 13, of Plains brought in 25 points; Chayton Lulack, 13, of Plains took in 17 points, and Caleb Connolly, 15, of Plains scored 28 points. The top ten individual point scorers were listed for the weekend’s meet.

Every swimmer contributes points to the overall team point score based on their individual placements in each final race, and relay teams also contribute to the overall team score. For the Piranhas, that overall team score was the ticket to a Top 3 Team Score, which translates to the earning of hardware. For the first time in over 10 years, the team placed in the Top 3 Overall and earned a trophy, with a total score of 538 points.

Team scores increase with greater numbers, and since the Piranhas brought so many athletes to the meet, they were able to score enough for a trophy despite a few disqualifications.

“It’s an amazing accomplishment and I know the swimmers are really excited about the trophy,” Coach Melanie said. “We hope to continue going to our next meets in great numbers, and to to never stop improving in our technique.”