The Austin Aqua Pack swim team swam their section meet Sunday Jan. 26. Weather created havoc for the normal operation of the section meet. The Y teams from Winona, Worthington, Mankato, Albert Lea and Austin compete in the southwest section of the state. Due to weather and a clause in Minnesota Y state rules, the teams swam respectively in their home pools. This puts the swimmers at a disadvantage since the great swimming competition they would face was out of the picture and the swimmers truly had to swim against the clock as they wouldn’t know how well they did until the meet was merged together.

Austin had 32 swimmers participate in the section meet — Coach Cindy Bowe had hope the swimmers had a good chance to advance to the state meet — with the weather it made the swimmers faced swimming their best against the clock. Their season of training didn’t let them or their coach down — 29 swimmers are moving on to the state YMCA Swim Meet on Feb. 9 at the University of Minnesota Aquatic Center. The YMCA of Austin’s Aqua Team is the state host this year which is a great honor.

Austin even had several section Championships — The 100 Medley Relay team of Collin Berg, Rory Pollock, Lucas Myers and Kenny Cabeen; this same group of boys are the Section Championships in the 100 Free Relay. Lucas Myers was Section Champion individually in 25 free and 25 breast, while teammate Rory Pollock was second in the 25 breast. Emily McAlister was section champion in the 400 IM, while Logan Kelly was section Champion in all three individual events 100 IM, 50 fly and 50 breast. Trey Myers, Lucas’ older brother was Section champion in the 100 IM. Jaycie Pollak was Section champion in the 25 fly — this is Jaycie’s first year swimming competitively and Hannah Schwemmler was section champion in the 100 fly.

State qualifiers for the team are Andrew Alberts, Trevor Baldus, Jaeda Bekaert, Laura Bekaert, Collin Berg, Kenny Cabeen, Rafe Dolan-Peterson, Zoe Dolan-Peterson, Kory Engelstad, Molly Garry, Natalie Guanella, Elora Hughes, Lily Hughes, Bridgid Kelly, Logan Kelly, Shannan Kelly, Jack Marsh, Emily McAlister, Lucas Myers, Trey Myers, Adam Pike, Lauren Pike, Hannah Pike, Jaycie Pollak, Rory Pollock, Hannah Schwemmler, Molly Sheehan, Hanna Thompson, and Winston Walkup.