LOVELAND — Not a full team, but a complete effort.
Silver Creek High School’s swim team might have been missing 18 swimmers who enjoyed spring break Tuesday instead of splashing around the Hewson Aquatic Center, but a close loss wasn’t too bad considering the circumstances.
Silver Creek lost, 99-86, to Thompson Valley.
“I think it was good for us, because Thompson Valley, that’s the team we look at as our major competition in our conference,” Silver Creek co-coach Stephen Beam said. “That’s who we have our sights on. We’re just like they are, we want to win conference. It was good for our kids.
“It’s nice to know we can be as close as we are with that amount of kids missing, and I think encouraging for them, too. They came in here expecting to get beat pretty bad.”
Silver Creek won two of the relays. It put a major dent in the score by sweeping the top three spots in the 50 freestyle, an advantage wiped out by Thompson Valley sweeping those same three spots in diving.
Alex Roiniotis led the 50 charge, followed by Matt Schreiner and Nick Koerner, the first two with state-qualifying times.
Roiniotis also won the 100 backstroke, and Koerner capped his day by winning the 100 free, not bad for a swimmer who was in the hospital a week ago with pancreatitis.
“The 50 free, we had a really strong swim there, and the 100 free,” co-coach Debbie Stewart said. “Alex was really strong.”
The key, said Beam, was how the swimmers reacted to being pushed into new territory.
“When Debbie and I made the lineup, we kind of did it like, of all of our kids, where can we at least be the most competitive, and sometimes that’s in events where they don’t normally swim,” he said. “It was nice to see kids swim events they don’t normally swim and swim them competitively.”
With the conference meet in roughly three weeks, the Raptors will approach the remainder of the schedule with caution.
“We still have Mountain View,” Stewart said. “One step at a time. We have Mountain View first, and they’re one of our tougher schools, and Estes Park.”
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