CORNER BROOK - The Corner Brook Synchronized Swim Team recently held their year-end show at the Sir Wilfred Grenfell College pool and the event was certainly shrouded by a celebratory mood.
Perhaps it was just the emotion of finishing up another season, or maybe it was the impressive performance by the club at the Atlantic Regional Synchronized Swimming Championships in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island in mid-May.
Up against teams from the host province, as well as Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Newfoundland and Labrador, the Corner Brook squad - consisting of Molly Noseworthy, Kelsey Hogan, Julia Howe, Jessica MacDonald and Alaina Squires - captured the gold medal in the overall team competition, while the team's swimmers also did well in pairs and singles events.
Noseworthy and MacDonald paired up to win the gold medal in the duets event, while Squires and Howe combined for a fourth-place finish.
-Kelsey Hogan
In the figures solo category, Noseworthy earned a silver medal, while MacDonald was sixth, Squires placed seventh, Hogan finished ninth and Howe ended up in 16th place.
With about 190 swimmers present at the competition, team coach Lori Chaytor was more than pleased with the results of her squad.
"I'm not surprised," she said. "They were technically ready for it ...I knew they'd do good because they really put a lot into it.
"All the girls have improved a lot from last year and they're actually all moving up two levels now," she added. "They're currently in Tier II, but next year they'll be in Tier IV. It's going to require a lot more technical ability from them and they're going to have to work on things that are a lot harder, but they'll all be fine."
Noseworthy stood as the most successful of the group during the Atlantic event, although she admitted she surprised herself with her medal haul.
"I knew we had a lot of competition for duets," she said of herself and MacDonald. "We had placed first at provincials, so I thought we had a good chance, but with another duet team from Corner Brook (Squires and Howe), we knew it would be a close call between us and them.
"The figures, I didn't think I would do that well," she continued. "It was really stiff competition in figures. It was between me and a girl from Fredericton, who we were also up against in duets. She came first in figures, but we beat her team in duets."
That prime performance at the last big competition led into the year-end show, which went well, according to Chaytor.
"It's for the competitive and pre-competitive swimmers," she said. "It's a chance for parents and other girls to see what everybody can do. We have our sights set now on some other girls for next year to move up to competitive.
"It was a good year for the club," she added. "All of my girls are going to St. John's for a camp in August for the Canada Games trials and we'll be back in the pool again in September."
Local synchronized swim club brings home hardware
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