Lady Dogies Post Personal Bests During Two-Meet Weekend

Newcastle closed a two-meet weekend with 95 points and an eighth-place finish at the eight-team Worland Invitational on Saturday, one day after weather cut short the Lady Dogies’ triangular in Buffalo. Although Newcastle lost Friday’s dual scoring 44-7 to Buffalo and 46-8 to Douglas, the Lady Dogies recorded personal records, season-best efforts and several top-five finishes across the two days of competition.

Friday’s meet at the Buffalo YMCA was canceled just before the 500-yard freestyle because of lightning in the area. Because the building is not grounded, the 10-mile lightning rule remained in effect for the indoor competition. The cancellation came with four Newcastle swimmers entered in the 500 freestyle, and the meet was scored through seven events. Allie Lunstra delivered Newcastle’s top individual result, placing second in the 100 butterfly in 1 minute, 11.59 seconds.

Newcastle opened the triangular with a fourth-place finish from Macy Steber, Shelby Smith, Lunstra and Madalyn Francis in the 200 medley relay. Their time of 2:23.02 was about two seconds off the group’s best. Six of Newcastle’s seven swimmers then competed in the 50 freestyle. Steber led the Lady Dogies in 31.07, Smith followed in 31.94 and Francis finished in 32.06. Lillian “Lilly” Lopez posted a personal-record 33.52, an improvement of nearly three seconds.

Steber’s performances were particularly encouraging in her return from an ankle injury suffered during warmups at the first meet of the season. After three weeks of recovery and limited pool time, Steber finished within eight-tenths of a second of her previous best in the 50 freestyle and placed eighth in the 100 freestyle at 1:09.39, about one second off her time from last season.

At Worland, Lunstra again produced Newcastle’s best individual finishes. She placed fourth in the 500 freestyle with a season-record time of 6:13.29 and added another fourth-place finish in the 100 backstroke at 1:09.73. Francis, Chevy Bryan, Lunstra and Lopez placed fifth among 13 entries in the 200 medley relay, finishing in 2:28.42. The 200 freestyle relay team of Bryan, Smith, Natalie Dean and Lunstra added a season-best 2:11.25 and placed 10th.

Smith recorded a personal best in the 200 freestyle, placing 13th in 2:31.71. The performance cut about four seconds from her previous best and moved her within four seconds of the state-qualifying standard. She also led Newcastle’s 100 freestyle entries with a 15th-place time of 1:09.26. Steber lowered her 50 freestyle time by another four-hundredths of a second, finishing in 31.04, while Bryan took one second off her personal best in the 100 freestyle.

Dean attempted the 200 individual medley and 100 butterfly for the first time this season. She was disqualified after technical violations on two turns in the individual medley and at the butterfly finish, but completed most of both races cleanly. Lopez also reached an important benchmark in the 100 backstroke, finishing in 1:28.11 after working through turn issues that had previously resulted in disqualifications. Riverton won the Worland Invitational with 496 points, followed by Buffalo with 386 and Kemmerer with 313.