Facing teams that had nearly 100 swimmers, the Aspen Swim Club’s small contingent of 13 athletes more than held their own at the 2018 Las Vegas Super Finals, held Nov. 29 to Dec. 2 at the Pavilion Center Pool in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The Sandpipers of Nevada, one of the nation’s premier programs and the meet host, easily won with 2,457.5 points. Aspen finished fifth with 524 points despite having only a fraction of the available swimmers compared to most of the top teams.
“It’s fun that we were in this meet,” Aspen coach Gordon Gerson said. “I thought early on throughout the meet we were really close to being fourth, but their numbers just sort of did us in.”
The meet was a “Super Final” format. This meant that after the preliminary rounds, the top eight swimmers, regardless of age, were put into the same final. The top eight swimmers who did not make the super final were put into their own age group final.
This is where the Speedos talent shone through, with eight of their 13 swimmers making at least one super final. Shea Card, who attends Basalt High School, had the best of the results. He had two runner-up finishes in a super final, taking second in both the 100 back and the 200 back. Card also finished fourth in the 200 free super final.
Cole Petersen, 17, also had a strong meet. His best finish was third in the 400 IM super final. He also had fourth-place finishes in both the 100 breast and the 200 breast super final.
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Lillie Boggs, 13, led the younger girls with a pair of third-place finishes in the 400 IM and 500 free super finals. Aspen High School senior Davy Brown was fourth in the 200 back super final, which paired with a couple of age-group wins.
Lillian Huggard, Bennett Jones, Laila Khan-Farooqi and Kayla Tehrani made super finals, as well.
“We were extremely well represented in the fast end of the competition,” Gerson said. “It’s a stepping stone for the rest of the season and I can’t imagine, honestly, a more positive outcome. They were all getting pretty tired by the last day of a three and a half day long meet. But some of them had done 17, 18 swims by the time this thing was done.”
The Aspen Swim Club is now on a short hiatus from competition. The Speedos will head to its annual distance camp in Grand Junction at the end of the month before the MAValanche Invitational in early January.