While Sedona Red Rock High School’s team is composed largely of experienced swimmers, their season-opening meet on Thursday, Sept. 24 had a different feel.
The Scorpions did have an opponent, Northland Prep Academy, but the Spartans swam their events at their home pool in Flagstaff, while SRRHS was at the Community Pool in Sedona. It was the first virtual meet in a season that, due to COVID restrictions limiting the number of people who can be at a pool, figures to have a few more like it.
“It was different,” Sedona coach Dan Morse said. “It’s hard to be as competitive without people actually here. But everybody still put in really good efforts and raced hard to set up some good times. The clock is always running so we can always check our times. That was our first actual race we’ve done this season. Now we have times that we’re going to be trying to beat for the rest of the year.”
The Scorpions won the overall event 95-91. The Northland Prep girls team defeated their Sedona counterparts 60-41, but the Scorpion boys won 54-31 to give the team a 95-91 victory.
Morse acknowledged that he had to be accommodating in a few areas to make the virtual meet work. One was that, since Northland Prep doesn’t have starting blocks at their pool, the Spartans are unable to do relays. As such, while Sedona ran relays, Morse didn’t count them toward the overall team score. Additionally, because NPA doesn’t have blocks and SRRHS does, Morse added a second to his team’s times.
“I was very nice with a lot of the agreements,” Morse said. “I was very happy to have a meet.”
Even with the time adjustments and not counting the relays, a Scorpion swimmer touched first in 11 events. On the boys side, sophomore Carlos Lattanzi and senior Andrew Tate each won twice. Lattanzi won the 200 individual medley and 100 breaststroke while Tate won the 200 and 500 freestyles. Other winners on the boys side included seniors Eric Schrader in the 50 freestyle, Cody Brefeld in the 100 butterfly, and Jamie Alagna in the 100 freestyle.
On the girls side, senior Izzy Constante won two events, touching first in the 100 and backstroke events. Senior Louise “Breezy” Taylor won the 100 breaststroke while freshman Nia Trujillo won the 50 freestyle.
The virtual meet created different feelings among Sedona swimmers. Alagna, who didn’t swim as a junior but did as a freshman and sophomore, said that he felt relaxed, almost as though it was a practice. Fellow senior Lesly Suarez, who’s in her first year of competitive swimming, had a different feeling.
“I was telling Dan that I was shaking, nervous,” she said. “I’ve never felt that before, even in any other sport. I’ve never been that nervous. Ever. I feel like if there were more opponents in the pool or more people in general that I would have been more calmed down. It felt like all of the eyes were on me.”
Despite the unusual feel of the meet, the Scorpions were still upbeat about the performance and spirit that they put forth.
“It was a weird day but it was good,” Morse said. “They all did well. They all raced, cheered each other on and raced.”
