Horns take advantage of home pool at historic Canada West championships

trevor.kenney — Mon, 28 Nov 2022 23:35:45 +0000

The Pronghorns swim teams put on a show for their home crowd as the 2022 Canada West Swimming Championships took over the Max Bell Regional Aquatic Centre this weekend. For the first time in program history, the Horns came away with a medal haul in the double digits, hitting the conference podium 10 times over the three-day event.

Pronghorns Apollo Hess was named the top swimmer of the meet in sweeping gold in the men's breaststroke events.

The Pronghorns also captured some major awards, as head coach Peter Schori was named the Canada West Men’s Coach of the Year, while second-year swimmer Apollo Hess was named the Men’s Swimmer of the Meet and Canada West Swimmer of the Year.

Schori says while the weekend was really about showcasing the Pronghorns program, he was honoured by the recognition.

“I’m super, super proud. Coach of the Year usually goes to the winning men’s or women’s team, and it’s voted on by the coaches, so for all my peers to recognize me, that’s great,” says Schori.

The meet began with a bang on Friday, as Hess swam a blazing 26.63 in both the qualifier and the final of the 50-metre breaststroke to break his own Canadian record and capture his first gold of the weekend. Hess swept the breaststroke golds for the men, also topping the podium in the 100-metre and 200-metre events.

Schori says the weekend from Hess was yet another step in the impressive progression he’s seen over the swimmer’s time with the Horns.

“He’s been our leader, really since he got here, certainly in terms of his performances and more and more now in terms of his character and leadership,” says Schori.

Pronghorns rookie Tristan Bennett got in on the breaststroke hardware action too, taking bronze in Friday’s 50-metre final with a time of 27.74 seconds, a provincial record for 18-year-old male swimmers.

Veteran Chris Alexander collected a trio of individual medals, grabbing a silver in Friday’s 50-metre backstroke final, followed by a bronze in Saturday’s 50-metre freestyle and a second silver in Sunday’s 100-metre backstroke.

In one of the upsets of the weekend, Raine Arden captured gold in Saturday’s 200-metre freestyle final. Arden was seeded fourth heading into the race, but got out to a blazing start off the block and held off a pair of Calgary Dinos racers with a 1:48.42 finish.

Arden joined Hess, Alexander and Parker Brown as a formidable relay front on both Saturday and Sunday night, as the group raced to bronze in the 400-metre freestyle relay and silver in the 400-metre medley relay.

Schori says the extra boost from the home crowd was felt all weekend by his swimmers.

“We have a super strong program right now, especially on the men’s side, and we wanted to show that off at home. You could see it on the swimmers’ faces, what it felt like when they were marching out and how uplifting that was,” he says.

The men would complete the weekend third overall, while the women placed sixth, both good for the highest finish in program history. The Calgary Dinos topped the team podium on the men’s side, with the UBC Thunderbirds finishing first for the women.

The Horns currently have 11 swimmers qualified for USPORTS championships in February, hosted by the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Victoria.

Pronghorns sprint way into national swimming spotlight

trevor.kenney — Mon, 21 Nov 2022 18:59:50 +0000

The common sports cliché says a typical season isn’t a sprint but a marathon — not so for the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge Pronghorns swim program where every day is about the sprint. This niche focus on sprint distances has propelled the Horns to the top of the podium at the national level and served notice that the path to gold now winds through Lethbridge.

Pronghorns' swimmer Apollo Hess is one of the marquee attractions heading into the Canada West meet.

This weekend, the Horns will put their well-earned reputation as a new sprint power to the test when they serve as hosts for the Canada West Swim Championships at the Max Bell Regional Aquatic Centre.

“It’s exciting, and very different; we’re normally used to being the ones who have to chase people down and now we’re the team they’re all trying to chase down,” says fourth-year backstroker Chris Alexander, who won bronze in the 50-metre backstroke at last year’s USPORTS nationals. “The success we had last year, we were quite shocked with what happened. We showed up to the USPORTS meet with just four guys and there were other teams that had 18 guys and we were able to come out on top.”

Alexander, along with Apollo Hess, Raine Arden and Parker Brown, blistered their way to a national championship in the 4x100-metre medley relay and followed that performance with a silver medal win in the 4x100-metre freestyle relay, despite the fact only two of the four are freestyle specialists.

The Horns’ fate has them swimming in the Canada West deep end with perennial USPORTS powers ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of British Columbia and ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Calgary. These are big programs in big cities that boast national team ties and complete rosters that compete across all swim disciplines. The Horns know they can’t match that quantity of swimmers, so they focus on the sprint distances — and they do it well.

“From a team ranking standpoint, we’re never going to be able to compete across the board because we simply can’t cover all those bases. If our team were to get to third or fourth in terms of points, that would be pretty significant,” says head coach Peter Schori. “What we tell swimmers when we’re recruiting is that ULethbridge is the right place academically and then we focus on what we can give them in terms of an athletic experience, whether that’s an opportunity to find success as part of a relay or in specific sprint areas. I think our reputation has grown in recent years and we’ve given kids in Western Canada another option beyond the big schools to think about.”

Sprinkle in the country’s fastest breaststroke specialist, lightning bolt Apollo Hess, and the Horns are garnering attention. Rookie swimmer Ryenne Katterhagen, who specializes in breaststroke, chose ULethbridge for many reasons. The Calgary product wanted to get away from home for her post-secondary experience and in addition to the smaller school, smaller city lifestyle she sought, the personal, individualized support environment appealed to her.

After winning national gold in the medley relay last season, the Horns are now the team to beat.

“It’s all about support and sharing here and the atmosphere around the team and the school is just a very supportive and fun environment,” she says. “I’ve learned a lot just from watching what Apollo does, how he trains, what he does in practice and then I try and incorporate that into my own work. To see the success he has had is really motivating.”

And now the bar has been set, both in terms of aspiring for excellence and the dedication, accountability and commitment it takes to get there. The Horns men’s team enters the Canada West meet ranked 5th in the country, while the women’s team is 10th nationally and has been consistently among the top 10 all season.

“In the past I think we’d had some issues with some people not buying into the goals we were setting as a team. Last year really set the standard and we’re seeing that picked up by everyone this year,” says Alexander, a Lethbridge Amateur Swim Club product who chose to stay home to swim for the Horns. “It’s not something that just happens, we have to stay on top of it but watching the rookies and how they’ve adapted, it’s exciting to see what they’re capable of and what’s coming.”

The Canada West meet begins Friday afternoon with sessions at 4 and 5:30 p.m. On Saturday, the sessions run at 10 a.m. and 5 p.m., while Sunday’s closing session go at 9 a.m. and 3 p.m.

Schori says the action for local fans begins Friday night with Hess as the marquee attraction.

“Apollo was the Canada West male swimmer of the year and rookie of the year last season and is the Canadian record holder in the men’s 50-metre breaststroke and he’ll be racing that on Friday night,” says Schori. “So, there’s a chance to see the fastest man in Canadian history swim that event, which is pretty cool.”

Alexander holds all the Horns backstroke records and he’ll also swim for gold Friday night, while Katterhagen and teammate Hunter Stewardson lead the women’s team as top-10 ranked swimmers in the 50 and 100-metre breaststroke. Saturday and Sunday late sessions present the thrilling relay events.

“Those events are when you literally need the earplugs because it gets crazy in here,” says Schori. “This place isn’t built to quiet the sound, it bounces off the walls and really raises the energy level of everyone. If we have a big home crowd here making some noise for our Horns athletes, that’ll be really awesome.”

UNews - Raine Arden

Horns take advantage of home pool at historic Canada West championships

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