SUBMITTED BY GISS SWIM TEAM
The Gulf Islands Secondary Scorpions swim team wrapped their season up on Friday, Nov. 14, with the team giving it their all at the provincial championships in Richmond at the Watermania pool.
With very big shoes to fill from their predecessors, this year saw a turning of the page and the youngest team GISS has ever sent to provincials. Although their results may not have brought home the same glory of some past teams, the future would appear to be extremely bright with several positives taken from the competitions attended this year.
At the conclusion of last season, most of the senior swimmers and veterans on the team had the good fortune to graduate and begin their journeys in the world beyond high school, and while some new young swimmers joined the ranks, this team had some smaller numbers and quite younger years to them.
This was the first season in over a decade to not have a Grade 12 swimmer and only had two swimmers in Grade 11 to provide the veteran leadership necessary to raise a squad. Full praise for this task goes entirely to our volunteer coach Matthias Woodley (returning to pay it back to the team he swam with for a half decade) and captain Molly Magley, who was a combination of heart, soul, grit and glue for the team. Despite their youth — and the uniqueness with high school swimming of not competing by age or size brackets — no lack of confidence was ever felt with these Scorpions.
A team of 10 swimmers attended the Vancouver Island qualifying championship meet on Oct. 18 to see who was good enough to compete at the provincial level. In all events, only the best five swimmers or relay teams are able to qualify for the provincials, and seeing our youngest swimmers on the starting blocks against athletes twice their size was both humbling and heartening.
After five intense hours of racing and competition, chaos and fatigue, we finished with two single swimmers qualifying in the top of their races (Pasley Hayden in both breaststroke and individual medley, and Arthur Cabello-MacLean in individual medley), as well as three relay teams in both freestyle and medley relay races.
With several top-10 finishing placements, there was frantic waiting right to the deadline to see if any other swimmers chose to scratch, and we did have an extra relay team qualify with a sixth-place finish as well.
Provincials brought a great deal of challenge for the humble little squad, as several swimmers were unable to attend for various circumstances — and our team consisted of seven brave souls, six of whom were in Grade 10 or younger, facing the very best of B.C. Although we were unable to crack the hallowed ground of swimming for medals on championship Saturday, several very bright things came to pass.
Freshman swimmers Darwyn Chan and Cecilia Cabello-MacLean swam times and had sections of their relays that were competitive with the most senior swimmers. Liam Winchester turned in the two best times of his entire swimming career in his relay legs. Hayden and Arthur Cabello-MacLean had excellent times in their single races despite facing a very strong crop of competition. Jacob Harder showed amazing growth from his times clocked at practice. And at the centre of all the chaos Magley stood out, both within our team and with other team leadership, showing her direction and drive for our squad.
This was a year that could have been quite rough, with so much youth and some reduced numbers. Combined with the habits of our local kids to compete in as many sports as they can apparently find, holding down jobs in several cases to help the community stay open and still maintaining good performance at school, this was a year with minimal specialization in the pool.
Yet our swimmers did an amazing job, working themselves ragged at practice to improve and representing our island brilliantly.
We’re proud of every team we put in the water every year, but this year stood out for all the growth and potential. We can’t wait for September, and hopefully all the kids bring some extra friends!