Five Durango Swim Club members qualified and competed in the 2024 Western Zone SCY Senior Zones Championships earlier this month at Utah Tech University’s Human Performance Center in St. George, Utah.
Raina Dixon, Elin Mischler, Paxton Paxton-Horn, Cassidy Scott and Denny Woods competed at the meet, which was held April 3-6.
Most notably, Woods took fifth place in the men’s 15-and-over 100-meter breaststroke with a time of 57.22 seconds and 17th in the men’s 15 and over 200 breaststroke with a time of two minutes and 6.35 seconds.
He has qualified in both of the breaststroke events in the 2024 USA Swimming Futures Championships, which will take place in July.
The weekend of March 21, Durango Swim Club swimmers raced at two different elite-level meets that required qualifying times to enter, pulling out strong performances.
Six of the Durango senior swimmers – Denny Woods, Elin Mischler, Olivia Becher, Cassidy Scott, Raina Dixon and Linzie Bidart – swam March 21-25 at the 2024 Speedo Spring Sectionals in Paradise Valley, Arizona, while Brinley Duran, 11, competed at the Southwest Age Group Regionals Championships in Fresno, California from March 22-26.
At the SWAGR Championships, Duran swam short-course yards at the Clovis North Aquatic Complex, just outside Fresno.
Duran raced in five events, placing top 20 in two races and top 10 in one event.
Duran placed ninth in the girls 11-year-old division in the 200 backstroke, cutting eight seconds in prelims for a time of 2:30.89. After coming back to finals on Monday night, Duran swam a time of 2:32.81 to place ninth and receive a medal.
The Speedo Sectional swimmers swam long-course meters at the Phoenix Country Day Aquatic Center in Paradise Valley. The meet was a long-course event due to 2024 being an Olympic year.
Woods swam in the 200 breaststroke, 100 breaststroke, 200 individual medley and 50 freestyle. He placed 25th in the men’s 15-and-over 100 breaststroke with a time of 1:08.41, cutting 2.28 seconds from his previous best time.
Mischler qualified for the 50 freestyle, 100 freestyle and 100 backstroke and two relays.
Scott, Becher, Dixon and Bidart qualified in relay events. The quartet also competed in time trial events.
In the women’s 14-and-over 800 freestyle relay, Mischler, Scott, Becher and Bidart placed 21st. In the 200 freestyle relay, Mischler, Scott, Bidart and Dixon placed 31st after originally being seeded 40th.
The swimmers will be taking a brief hiatus from other meets as they begin training for the summer long-course season, which begins at their home pool May 4-5.
