The Durango Swim Club has had a great start to the spring season and hopes to continue this momentum into the summer.
DSC went to the 2025 Speedo SC Western Zone Senior Championships in St. George, Utah, in April and then to the 2025 LCAT Susan Classic in Las Cruces, New Mexico, in May. Many athletes had great finishes and some even qualified for prestigious events.
“A lot of their success came from the adjustments that had to be made early on when I started coaching,” DSC head coach Haley Benjamin said. “We had coaches come and we had coaches leave in a very short period of time. They (the swimmers) were very adaptable to those changes.”
Benjamin has been coaching DSC for less than a year. She said the biggest change with her coaching was the team’s training routine. It takes a lot of time for coaches to learn each swimmer and what type of training the swimmer responds best to.
In April, the Speedo SC Western Zone Senior Championships in St. George, Utah, was a meet with good regional competition from multiple states.
At this meet, Trevor “Denny” Woods, 16, qualified for Winter Junior Nationals in the 100-yard breaststroke, also placing second overall in this event with a best time of 55.39 seconds. He also placed third in the 200-yard breaststroke in 2:03.28
“He’s very interesting for me,” Benjamin said about Woods. “At first, we went through a period, him and I, where we butted heads. When he was 7 or 8, I was his age. He’s known me for a good period of time, I went away for a while and then I came back. Now I’m coming back not as a teammate but as his coach … A lot of what I’m doing with him was done with me at his age.”
Benjamin said she and Woods have had to build a more trusting relationship. A lot of Woods’ success has come from his mindset around the sport, Benjamin said. He trains with the confidence that he already has the time he needs. Woods is very technical; he counts his strokes in the pool and knows how fast he’ll go if he takes a certain kick off the wall or a certain amount of breaths.
The two of them really enjoyed the art of racing and turning their brains off and just going for it.
Raina Dixon, 15, placed third in the 1,650-yard freestyle in 17:41.64. She also placed fourth in the 500-yard freestyle in 5:13.44.
The 200-yard mixed medley relay, consisting of Woods, Linzie Bidart (15), Cassidy Scott (17), and Paxton Horn (17), placed seventh, and the 200 mixed freestyle relay, with team members Dixon, Woods, Scott and Horn placed 10th.
After the zones meet in April, the team competed at the 2025 LCAT Susan Classic in Las Cruces, New Mexico, in May. After this meet, Brinley Duran, 12, received the second-place High Point award for 11-12-year-old girls with 77 points.
Benjamin said the LCAT Susan Classic was the season opener for a lot of teams and served all levels of swimmers.
Duran earned those points for the team because she placed very well and had a lot of time improvements, according to Benjamin.
She also won the 400-meter IM (6:00.96) and 200-meter backstroke (2:43.22). Duran placed second in the 200-meter freestyle (2:27.83) and 100-meter backstroke (1:17.78).
Dixon also raced to top-three finishes, winning the 400-meter freestyle (4:56.40) and 800-meter freestyle (10:09.30). She placed third in the 400-meter IM (5:40.10).
Scott placed second in the 100-meter butterfly (1:12.79) and Grayson LeRoux, 14, won the 200 breaststroke with a time of 2:57.05.
Eddie Harrington, 14, placed third in the 1,500-meter freestyle in 19:27.89 after cutting over a minute and a half off his previous best time.
“When I first started coaching him, he went through a bit of a plateau,” Benjamin said about Harrington. “He wasn’t dropping time in anything and was staying where he was for the last year. A lot of it was the way he handled it. Sometimes I was more bummed for him than he was for himself. Deep down, I think he knew he’d figure it out somehow and he did.”
The Durango Swim Club will compete at the Cortez Summer Open from Friday through Sunday at the Cortez Municipal Swimming Pool.
