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 - First-year head coach

Nicol, Thornley lead Horns' effort in pool

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Swim team continues to impress

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