Unexpected venue ends in Rivals swim team win

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East Jefferson left Klahowya in its wake as the Rivals girls swimming team topped the Ealges 99-62 late last week.

The Rivals won six of the 11 events and finished second in nine. 

“Our strength is our second and third tier swimmers,” said Rivals Head Coach Peter Braden. 

“A great example is Maggie Emery (sophomore),” Braden added. “Maggie was our third swimmer in the 50 freestyle and 100 back and she finished fourth in both, beating two of their swimmers each time.”

The contest against Klahowya was originally a home meet but became a road trip for the Rivals after Mountain View Pool in Port Townsend was closed due to a boiler valve leak. 

Other highlights included two more district qualifying relay swims for East Jefferson. 

The 200-yard freestyle relay team of Akeyla Behrenfeld (freshman), Melody Douglas (junior), Magdaline Ferland (junior) and Serena Hanby-Perless (freshman) posted a winning time of 2:04.51 and the Ferland, Hanby-Perless, Juliette O’Hara (freshman) and Behrenfeld’s time of 4:37.88 was good for a second-place finish. 

Behrenfeld added an individual district qualifying swim in the 100-yard freestyle with a second-place finish and time of 1:02.66.

Swimming in their first meet, sophomores Addy Asbell and Keely Peirce impressed their EJ teammates with great swims in both their 50- and
100-yard freestyles. 

Rivals Assistant Coach Shannon Minnihan said of Peirce: ”When Keely first joined us her 40-yard free was 46 seconds. She swam 10 yards further and went 11 seconds faster today!”

The Rivals saw plenty of action during the week, despite the closed Mountain View Pool. The team traveled to Sequim throughout the week for their practices, and Tuesday wound up being a practice day instead of the planned trip to Sequim to compete against the Wolves after the meet was postponed due to lack of meet officials.

The Sequim meet was rescheduled for Tuesday, Oct. 12. 

Mountain View Pool’s boilers have since been fixed and the team is very excited to return, according to EJ coaching staff. 

“We appreciate the work the city and YMCA did to repair the boilers and are excited not to be on the road just to practice,” Minnihan said.

The team has another busy week with their senior recognition meet in Sequim this week followed by a meet at 3A powerhouse Bainbridge Island.