Lady Warrior swimmers have strong showing in Cody

CODY - The Worland High School girls swimming team had a strong two-day performance in Cody last week. Thursday night the Lady Warriors cruised to an easy dual win against Cody, 116-57, and Friday took second at the Cody Invitational.

While competing strongly as a team in Cody the Lady Warriors also racked up the automatic qualifiers for the 3A State meet in Gillette on November 2-4.

Ellyse Russell (200 free style, 500 free), Kristen Collingwood (200 individual medley, 500, 200 free) Kyra Klinghagen (diving), Kaci Bentley (100 backstroke, 200 free, 500 free), Macy Trombley (100 backstroke, 200 IM, 100 free) and Juli Warren (200 IM) all automatic qualified in their respective events during the dual or invitational.

"We swan well both days," said WHS girls swimming coach Mike Blissett. "It's getting good and about half the team has qualified. We have girls that are pretty close and we're working them pretty hard."

Blissett was thrilled by the performances by all of his swimmers but one swimmer in particular, Annalise Newell, has stuck out the most.

"She is dropping chunks of time and doing really well. She swam the 100 butterfly and dropped four seconds and also swam the backstroke and dropped 2.5 seconds. That's all in the last week or so she's been doing this. It's pretty awesome. We have some other girls dropping time too but she's stood out in early part of the season," said Blissett.

With a few meets under their belts Blissett has seen his freshman swimmers progress well and become more comfortable in the pool.

"The biggest eye opener for them is the distance in yardage we do in practice. It's a shock in the beginning but they're getting used to it right now. They're settling in pretty well and getting the hand of how the meets go. The rookieness of them is starting to wear off," said Blissett.

As for the more experienced Lady Warrior swimmers they been excellent at pushing themselves and Blissett has also thrown in a few wrinkles to add to their motivation.

"They are self-motivated but it's important that we keep pushing them. I've thought of a few creative ways to push them amongst themselves. I tried some for Cody that seemed to work pretty well," said Blissett.

All-in-all the Lady Warriors have made excellent progress in the early part of their season and if things continue on this trajectory their ceiling this year will be getting higher.

"We're doing really well for this point in the season. We haven't even hit our stride as far as yardage and practices go yet and they're already dropping time. They look good in the water and they look strong, I'm looking forward to how the rest of it goes," said Blissett.

The Lady Warriors will be back in action 5 p.m. Friday with the Worland Quad meet at the Worland Aquatic Center.