Swimming teams gearing up for Pre-Regional Showcase

There’s still more than a month to go before district meets, but swimming teams from across the Rio Grande Valley will get a pretty good idea this weekend of how their teams stack up with the competition.

Well, maybe.

Starting Friday, Brownsville’s Margaret M. Clark Aquatic Center will play host to the two-day Pre-Regional Showcase, featuring 26 teams and 517 athletes. The event’s format is similar to that of regional meets, with both qualifying and final races.

Some teams plan on using this event as something of a test run, using athletes in the same events they’ll swim in district and regional competitions. Others, though, will mix things up and try to get swimmers activity in events they probably won’t compete in during the season’s biggest meets.

One thing all coaches will agree on, however, is that the meet is perhaps the most important before district and maybe even regional competitions.

 “Yes (it’s a big deal),” a laughing Brownsville Rivera coach Ryan Shea said. “It kind of gives you a preview of your region. It gives a good outlook of how things are going to turn out.”

WRESTLING WITH FOOTBALL

Of the three Valley schools that reached the third round of the football playoffs, only PSJA North has a wrestling program. The Raiders, who were 11-2 and finished second in District 31-5A, had 10 wrestlers on the team, including star running back and 160-pounder J.J. Rodriguez.

PSJA North wrestling coach Luis Navarro, who also serves as the Raiders’ offensive coordinator, said those players just got back to wrestling last week.

Other than just getting those athletes out of a football mindset and into wrestling, he had to change their conditioning. Football conditioning, he said, is more about short bursts. Wrestling, meanwhile, is about lasting on the mat for six minutes of hand-to-hand competition.

“Cardiovascularly, they’re not in the top shape they need to be in for wrestling,” Navarro said. “It’s a different type of shape. A different type of conditioning. The biggest thing with our football kids is, they know how to wrestle but we’ve got to fine-tune the technique.

“We really have to work to get them into physical condition to be able to withstand the endurance part of wrestling.”

UPCOMING

On Saturday, Mission Veterans Memorial will play host to a boys dual tournament. In Weslaco, Weslaco East will host a boys and girls invitational.

Like this weekend, next weekend’s most prominent swimming event will be in Brownsville. Unlike the Pre-Regional Showcase, the Brownsville ISD City Championship will feature only the five local schools.

Brian Sandalow covers high school swimming and wrestling for Valley Freedom Newspapers. You can reach him at (956) 683-4436 or via e-mail at bsandalow@themonitor.com.