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.

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.

UNews - Kiara Bodell

Pronghorn swimmers medal at Canada West

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Nicol, Thornley lead Horns' effort in pool

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