UNews - Peter Schori

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.”

Pronghorns swimmers post historic results at nationals

trevor.kenney — Tue, 29 Mar 2022 17:03:46 +0000

The ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge Pronghorns swim team posted a record-setting weekend in Quebec City, returning home with five medals and a pair of impressive records.

Overall, the U SPORTS Championships were a special one for the program. The team of seven athletes set a Canadian record, two provincial records, nine school records, earned four All-Canadian awards and earned five medals, securing the program’s first national medals since 2005.

The five national medals are the most ever for the Pronghorns swim team at one national championship, with the previous high being four individual medals in 2000.

"We had so many special moments during the championship," said Pronghorns head coach Peter Schori. "All of our seven swimmers scored points in the finals and our relays were extraordinary!"

For a full recap, check out gohorns.ca.

Schori earns coaching spot at FINA world meet

trevor.kenney — Wed, 07 Dec 2016 20:26:07 +0000

On the heels of a successful Canada West Swimming Championship meet, ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge Pronghorns head swim coach Peter Schori will now step on to the international stage as a coach at the 2016 FINA World Swimming Championships in Windsor, ON.

The short course championships run Dec. 6-11.

“I am really excited to return to the national team coaching staff for the SC Worlds,” says Schori. “It will be great to be at a home competition with lots of support for our athletes. This is the first international meet since the Rio Olympics and there should be some great racing in the short pool.”

Previously, Schori served as a coach for Swim Canada at the 2011 FINA Long Course World Championships.

Schori was named the head coach of the Pronghorn and LASC program in August 2012 and has consistently seen a steady increase in Pronghorn swimmers qualifying for both the Canada West Championships and CIS/U Sports national meet.

Pronghorn swimmers will hit the pool Friday at Max Bell in the Alberta Open and will be looking to increase the qualified swimmers for the U Sports Championships in February. The Pronghorns currently have six swimmers qualified for the national meet.

Horns at championships meets

trevor.kenney — Fri, 21 Feb 2014 18:40:47 +0000

��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Letbridge Pronghorn athletes are busy on a number of fronts this weekend, including the swim and track and field teams that are competing at championship events.

Canada West Track Championships

The Pronghorns track and field team sends 21 competitors to the conference meet in Edmonton this year with some definite medal hopefuls.

Picking up where she left off from her freshman season, Kayla Gallagher enters the conference meet ranked second in the weight throw. If her first year was any indication though, her best is yet to come. Last year, Gallagher peaked at the right time by winning both the Canada West and CIS weight throw titles.

Joining Gallagher in the throws events will be second-year thrower Montana Forsyth and newcomer Lara Roth. Roth will also throw in the shot put event.

On the men’s side, reigning Canada West weight throw champion Peter Millman also had a good start to his second season and enters the conference meet as the top ranked weight thrower. Millman is a medal threat in the shot put as well, ranked second in Canada West. Fellow thrower Ryan Sommer has taken a big step forward this season and is a medal contender in the shot put.

Third-year hurdler and pentathlon competitor Phillip Rockerbie had some positive early season results, ranked second in the conference in the 60-metre hurdles and has an outside shot at the podium in the pentathlon. Freshman jumper Aaron Hernandez burst on to the collegiate scene this season, winning both the long jump and triple jump events at the Golden Bear open. He will enter the Canada West Championships ranked first in the triple jump and third in the long jump.

CIS Swim Championships

For the second year in a row the Pronghorns swim team heads to the CIS Championship meet with 11 athletes, but this season the Horns have a balance between the two genders.

Last year in Calgary, the Horns sent 10 men and only one female swimmer, where this year the Horns will have four women swimming, and for the first time in more than a decade, will enter relay teams of both genders in the same CIS Championship.

Fifth-year sprinter Ryan Thornley will lead the men’s side that includes Duncan Donaldson, Nick van der Sloot, Scott Hunter, Tiha Konyves, David Errington and Kurt Carolus. Thornley was the Horns lone individual medalist from the Canada West Championships, winning a bronze in the 50-metre butterfly.

In addition to the individual events, the men’s relay could threaten the podium. Entering the championships, the men’s 400-metre free relay is ranked fourth in the country.

On the women’s side, after being the lone Pronghorn to qualify for the CIS Championships last season, Kara Declark will be joined by Keri Ann Cowan, Ardelle Layden and Lauren Smythies. The increased female qualifiers have allowed the Horns to enter the relays this year and should reflect an increase in the team scoring standings.

“For the first time in over a decade the program will see both the men’s and women’s team enter relays in the same CIS Championship,” says head coach Peter Schori. “We have a very strong sprint team with some fifth-year leadership and three first-year qualifiers.

“If all the guys are firing together our men could challenge for a top 10 in the team scoring.”

The 2014 CIS Swim Championships are hosted at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Toronto and the three-day national meet, which kicks off the CIS winter championship season, runs from Thursday to Saturday at the U of T’s Varsity Pool, with preliminaries starting at 10 a.m. and finals at 6 p.m. daily.

All finals will be webcast live on www.CIS-SIC.tv, while live results from all sessions will be available on the championship website: http://english.cis-sic.ca/championships/swim/index.

Pronghorn swimmers medal at Canada West

trevor.kenney — Tue, 28 Jan 2014 16:47:11 +0000

The ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge Pronghorns swim team returned home with two medals and two more qualifiers for the CIS Championships (Feb. 20-22, ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Toronto) after weekend performances at the Canada West championship meet.

Senior captain Ryan Thornley earned the lone individual medal, winning bronze in the 50-metre butterfly event on Friday night. Thornley was also a member of the Horns' 400-metre freestyle relay team that produced a bronze medal later in the meet.

“We had a good championship with our best point total since the 1990’s and our first relay medal in many years," says Pronghorns head coach Peter Schori. “Both the men’s and women’s teams improved on last year’s scoring and added new CIS qualifiers. Overall I’m pleased with our team's performance and we took another step closer to the top programs in the CIS. I think the men’s free relay will be very competitive at nationals next month.”

Thornley narrowly missed a second individual medal in the 50-metre freestyle, finishing fourth by just two one-hundredths of a second. He was also sixth in the 100-metre freestyle.

The Horns men’s relay finished fourth in the 400m medley relay and fifth in the 800m free relay.

Other notable performances on the men’s side: Nick van der Sloot finished fifth in the 50-metre backstroke and sixth in the 100-metre backstroke; David Errington earned three top six finishes with a fifth place performance in the 50-metre breaststroke and sixth place in both the 100 and 200-metre breaststroke; Tiha Konyves also had two ‘A’ final appearances and finished sixth in both the 50-metre freestyle and backstroke events.

On the women’s side, Keri-Ann Cowan led the way with two top-five finishes. She placed fourth in the 50-metre backstroke and fifth in the 100-metre backstroke. Also making ‘A’ final appearances were Kara DeClark and Kiara Bodell. DeClark finished fifth in the 50-metre backstroke and Bodell was seventh in the 200-metre backstroke.

On the relay side, the women had a strong meet, finishing fourth in both the 800 and 400-metre freestyle relays and sixth in the 400-metre medley relay.

In the team standings, the Horns women’s side moved up one spot from last year’s result and finished fourth in the conference with 294.5 points, while the men finished fifth again this season but improved their point total from 293.5 last season to 310 this year and closed the gap between themselves and the Victoria Vikes.

With a couple more weeks left for other team members to meet the CIS qualifying times, the Horns currently have 11 swimmers qualified for the CIS Championships in Toronto.

Horns swimmer McAllister honoured with Queen's medal

trevor.kenney — Thu, 21 Nov 2013 18:14:14 +0000

At only 20 years old, ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge Pronghorns swimmer Zack McAllister received one of Canada's highest honours recently when he was presented with the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal in recognition of his accomplishments representing Canada on the international swimming stage.

Created in 2012 to mark the 60th anniversary of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II’s accession to the Throne as Queen of Canada, the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal is a tangible way for Canada to honour Her Majesty for her service to this country. At the same time, this commemorative medal serves to honour significant contributions and achievements by Canadians.

McAllister joined the ‘Horns swimming program in January of 2012 after graduating from Lethbridge Collegiate Institute. He advanced through the Lethbridge Amateur Swim Club (LASC), and represented Canada at the 2012 Paralympic Games in London.

“Zack often downplays the significance of his accomplishments,” says Pronghorns head swim coach Peter Schori. “This recognition is a great opportunity for him to see how proud the community is of his world class performances and the inspiration he offers to other athletes and non-athletes.”

In London, McAllister’s best finish was sixth place in the 400-metre individual medley, and he put together a pair of exceptional performances enroute to that finish. McAllister knocked six seconds of his then personal best time to qualify for the finals and in the finals he swam another four seconds faster to finish sixth.

McAllister has also represented Canada at the Para Pan American Games in Guadalajara, Mex. in fall 2011, and after enrolling at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge in January 2012, attended meets in Los Angeles, Colorado and Sheffield, England. McAllister’s disability is a condition by which he has too many bones in his limbs, thereby restricting growth and range of motion in both his arms and legs.

Horns swim team grabs top recruit

trevor.kenney — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 21:13:17 +0000

The ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge Pronghorns men's swimming team has signed one of the top young international swimmers in the country.

Pronghorns swim coach Peter Schori announced the signing of top prospect Kurt Carolus on Thursday, a South African national who has been living in Saskatoon. Recruited out of the Saskatoon Goldfins program, Carolus is the third ranked graduating high school swimmer in Canada in the 200-metre butterfly.

"Kurt is a gold star recruit to our program, he is already swimming at a CIS top-10 level and wants to do the work to be better," says Schori. "We have a great incoming class and having Kurt choose the U of L to study and swim gets everyone excited about what we can accomplish next year."

Carolus won the 200-metre fly event at the 2012 Western Canada Championships and finished fourth at the 2012 African Swimming Championships. Last summer, Carolus swam in both the Canadian and South African Olympic trails where he made it to the semifinals in the 200-metre fly at the South African trials.

Prior to joining the 'Horns in the fall, Carolus will represent Team Saskatchewan at the 2013 Canada Summer Games in Sherbrooke, Que.

During his first season at the helm of the Pronghorns swim team, Schori achieved notable improvements with the program. The Horns qualified nearly twice as many athletes for the Canada West Championships and sent 11 athletes to swim in the CIS Championships in Calgary.

Nicol, Thornley lead Horns' effort in pool

trevor.kenney — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 18:45:06 +0000

This past weekend in Victoria, 27 Pronghorn swimmers hit the pool at the Canada West Championships, led by medalists Jeff Nicol and Ryan Thornley. It was the largest group of swimmers the 'Horns have sent in recent memory and they continued to build on this season's positive results.

Both the men's and women's sides finished fifth in their respective team categories with the men's side accumulating 293.5 points, while the women's side finished with 216. The 'Horns had 13 top-eight finishes at the meet and 20 of 27 swimmers recorded individual scoring points.

There were also two school records broken in Victoria with Thornley breaking the school record in the 100 metre backstroke and the men's 400 freestyle relay team also setting a new school mark.

"Canada West is the fastest conference meet in the CIS and it lived up to its billing," says first-year head coach Peter Schori. "Overall, I am pleased with our team's improvement but not satisfied with all of our results, I think we are better in some areas than we showed and expect to see improvements at the CIS Championships."

Thornley and fifth-year swimmer, Nicol led the way for the Pronghorns and were the only medalists this year. Nicol has medaled at the last four conference championship meets and finished with two medals in Victoria, while Thornley picked up a bronze in the 50-metre fly on Friday.

In the 200-metre breast stroke, Nicol earned silver in the event for the second consecutive year, and is currently ranked third in the CIS. He also swam a lifetime best time in the 100-metre breast stroke en route to a bronze medal.

The men's 400-metre freestyle relay team narrowly missed the podium, finishing fourth. It is currently ranked fifth in the CIS.

"We needed 3/10ths more in the Men's 400 Free Relay to get on the podium ahead of Alberta. The boys raced well but I think there are lots of places over 400 metres to find the improvement we need," says Schori.

On the women's side, Kara Declark had two top-8 finishes in the 50 and 100-metre fly events and Kiara Bodell also finished in the top eight in the 100 backstroke. A bright sign for the women looking toward the future is that 10 of the 14 women that competed at the championships registered points for the team.

"I am pleased to see the progress from our Women's team. They are a very young team and have raised their level of competitiveness in Canada West moving up to 5th place with 10 swimmers scoring points," says Schori.

The 'Horns had one more swimmer qualify for the CIS Championships and have qualified nine to date. The team will have another chance this weekend to post CIS qualifying times as the Lethbridge Swim Club plays host to the Speedo Alberta Senior Swimming Championships at the Max Bell Pool.

The CIS Championship meet will be hosted by the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Calgary Dinos, Feb. 21-23.

Swim team continues to impress

trevor.kenney — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 18:07:09 +0000

With the Canada West Championship meet still over a month away, the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge Pronghorn swim team continues to enjoy an impressive start to the season under first-year head coach Peter Schori.

After posting its first CIS Top 10 appearance in more than 10 years, the 'Horns have already nearly doubled their Canada West qualifying swimmers and will send their biggest team to the conference championships in more than seven seasons.

This past weekend at the JP Fiset Invitational meet in Edmonton, the 'Horns achieved one more Canada West qualifying time, pushing the team's total to 26. Last season, the 'Horns only sent 15 swimmers to the conference meet and with still more than a month to go, the 'Horns have qualified nearly that number in each gender. To date, the 'Horns have 13 men and 13 women who have achieved the Canada West qualifying standard.

A total of 25 of 29 Horns raced to lifetime bests last weekend and three more swimmers qualifyied for the CIS Championships.

Freshman Kara Declark secured her first CIS time in the 50 fly and is the first of the Pronghorn women to qualify for the CIS championship meet this year. Mat Loyola (200 breast) and Tiha Konyves (50/100 free) added their names to the men's CIS roster. Freshman Brooke Whitaker made her first Canada West standard in the 100 free. The Horns now have 26 swimmers qualified for the Canada West conference championship and eight swimmers qualified for the CIS national championship.

The Horns also broke five more school records to bring the total to nine for the season. The men set new Pronghorn records in the 200 free relay for the second time this year and continued to show national level class in the medley relay with their third new record of the season in the 200. Ryan Thornley broke his own 'Horns records in the 50 Back and 50 fly, becoming the first in school history to break 26 seconds in the 50 back with a time of 25.78 seconds. Jeffrey Nicol broke through in the 200 breast, bettering his own record by more than a second in 2:14.93.

The Canada West Championships will be hosted by the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Victoria, Jan. 25 -27, 2013.

UNews - Peter Schori

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