Shaves 120 seconds off personal best times, break school record

OWEGO – The Purple Tornado girls swim team had an amazing night of fast racing and it could not have come at a better time – the Section IV Class B preliminaries. 11 out of Norwich’s 16 swimmers qualified for the finals on Saturday while 29 out of 32 their personal best times were broken.

Over 120 seconds combined for all 16 girls were shaved from the individual bests with some of the time drops being significant. “Every swimmer reached a season goal that they set in the beginning of the preseason,” said Norwich head coach Saundra Gantt. “I couldn’t be more proud of this team and the things they have accomplished this season so far.”

Tanner Olds took off 25 seconds total while Haley Shattuck took the most time off 32 seconds.

Another large achievement of the night was the 200 yard freestyle relay team of Margie Winter, Kaitlyn Blaisure, Maya Blaisure and Angela Carlson took down a 20 year Norwich school record in the 200 Free Relay, each swimmer taken on 50 yards of the race.

The foursome completed the event in 1:42.85, beating the record by more than two seconds. Kaitlyn and Maya Blaisure, the middle sprinters of the race, swam two of the fastest splits by any other swimmer racing in the 200 yard relay.

Maya’s leg was the third quickest time of the entire event, swimming to a time of 25.51 seconds.