By Bruce Karnick

Tuesday October, 6th the Raiders travelled to Heritage Middle School to take on the Henry Sibley Warriors in an exhibition meet. Exhibition meets do not count toward the records of each team, but the times and dive scores do count for records and establishing seed times at other meets. Tuesday’s competition was more for the younger swimmers on each team. For this meet, JV swimmers were assigned varsity race slots, so they had the added pressure of scoring at a meet. The coaches discussed race pairings throughout the day to try to create competitive races for their junior varsity and younger swimmers, yet have their results be used for the scoring. During meets, only varsity race scores count for the team scores. The Raiders performed well, defeating the Warriors 107-79. Swimmers of the meet were Erin Clark and Sydney Mares. They both had lifetime best times. Clark placed first in the JV 200 Freestyle and fourth in the JV 100 Breaststroke. Sydney placed fourth in the Varsity 100 Butterfly and third in the 50 Freestyle.

Thursday, October 8th the Raiders faced South Saint Paul where they won 97:78 “[SSP] was a super fun meet,” said Head Coach Katie McAlpin.

“We were able to put a lot of races together for our JV kids and everyone performed well.” Swimmers of the meet were Olivia Smiley and Kira Aarness. Both had best times and won their individual events. Diver of the meet was Annika Tverberg.

Up next for the Raiders on Tuesday, October 13th, the last conference meet against North St .Paul at Maplewood Middle School.

Hastings Junior Varsity Swimmers Jocelyn Brink, Berlin Byrd and Lydia Lerbs after competing on the 100 butterfly vs Henry Sibley. Brink finished first with a time of 1:10.38, Byrd second with 1:14.37 and Lerbs third with 1:16.38. Photo by Bruce Karnick