Clark Aquatic Center plays host to to pre-regional meet
The Pre-Regional Showcase, one of Brownsville ISD's largest swimming meets, begins Friday at Margaret M. Clark Aquatic Center.
Approximately 30 teams, including some from Corpus Christi, are expected to compete in the two-day event, said Monica Rosales, BISD aquatic coordinator at the Clark facility.
"This meet is very important for two reasons, I think," Rosales said. "First of all, a swimmer in this meet gets to swim a prelim event (on Friday) and a final event (on Saturday). We don't usually have meets like that. Swimmers are used to swimming their events all in one day. You swim one day, and if you're good enough, you come back the next day for the finals. That's a good experience (in preparation for the regional meet at the Clark facility early next year).
"The other thing is this meet kind of gives a team an idea where it kind of sits in the regional (as far as its competition is concerned)," she added. "At this time of year, before Christmas and so forth, a coach can kind of prepare his or her team for which way it's going to go come district time -- does the team have a shot at coming in first or second or whatever might be possible?
"It's also a good motivator for coming to practice during this time of the year."
The meet begins with swimming prelims at 11 a.m. Friday. The two pools at the Clark Center will be used for simultaneous boys and girls competition. Girls 1-meter and boys 3-meter diving is also on tap Friday. On Saturday, the diving begins at 9 a.m. with boys 1-meter and girls 3-meter competition and the swimming finals start at 10 a.m. The top 16 swimmers in each prelim on Friday advance to Saturday's competition. The top eight will compete in the championship final and the next eight in the consolation final.
The McAllen Memorial boys and the Corpus Christi King girls are defending team champions.
"The format of this meet is important because it prepares the athletes for a two-day meet," said Luis Ramon Ortega, Porter's veteran swimming coach. "Most of the kids might not do a two-day meet, but the elite swimmers do and need to be prepared to have two good swims, one on Friday and one on Saturday. Besides the elite swimmers, the rest of them will be trying to make it to Saturday. The elite swimmers need to learn how to swim fast on Friday and then swim even faster on Saturday (just like the format will be for the regional meet).
"It's going to be a great meet," he added. "It's going to attract a lot of great athletes in our sport. There should be a lot of good races and give everyone an idea of what it's going to be like come district and then the regional."
Roy Hess writes for Valley Freedom Newspapers. You can reach him via e-mail at rhess@brownsvilleherald.com.
