By Jared Schmeltzer
Reporter
On Tuesday night the Merrill swim team hosted Medford in a dual meet at the PRMS pool. Merrill swimmers would break five school records on their way to a 98-72 win.
This win marks the first dual meet win in recent history for the Merrill swim team. Merrill swim coach Kristie Winter said, “We cannot find any record of a win in the results available but know it has been at least 20 years since the Bluejays won a meet. While we had some amazing swims and records broke tonight we also really pulled together as a team and fought hard from some second and third places finishes to bring home the points needed to win.”
In the first race of the day Merrill would break the school record for the 200 Medley relay. The swimmers involved were Grace Schultz, Bailey Orzech, Trinity Kanitz and Claire Schultz, who would swim the event in a time of 1:59.21, good enough for first place. Merrill’s Grace Schultz would then go on to take first place in the 200 yard freestyle, swimming a time of 2:02.35. Later in the meet Claire Schultz would break the school record for the 50 yard freestyle, swimming it in a time of 25.17 seconds, enough for first place over teammate Trinity Kanitz who swam a time of 27.2 seconds.
In the 100 yard butterfly Merrill’s Camryn Schultz would come in first place with a swim of 1:08.86, with Merrill’s Bailey Orzech right behind her with a swim of 1:09.04. Claire Schultz would later come back to break another school record, this time in the 100 yard freestyle with a swim of 55.45 seconds.
In the 500 yard freestyle, Erin Kanitz and Trinity Kanitz would place one and two, with Trinity taking the top spot in a time of 5:49.14 to Erin’s 5:54.57. Merrill would break their fifth and final school record for the day in the 100 yard backstroke, where Grace Schultz swam a first place time of 59.79 seconds. The Merrill swim team will head to Lodi High School on Saturday, Sept. 8, for an invitational with seven other teams, starting at 10 a.m.