Three swimmers from Bethel Regional High School travelled to Fairbanks to compete in the Region 6 Championships from Oct. 29 to Oct. 30. Junior Elenor Whitney, sophomore Adeline Perry, and freshman Ned Peters each competed in two events.
Region 6 includes athletes from Fairbanks area high schools: West Valley, North Pole, Lathrop, Hutchinson, Ben Eielson, and Monroe Catholic, as well as Nome-Beltz High School, Valdez, Galena, and Bethel Regional High School. The meet began with the preliminary competition on Friday, Oct. 29. Athletes swam for a spot in the finals, with the fastest 12 swimmers in each event qualifying for finals the next day.
Adeline Perry placed 10th in preliminaries on Oct. 29, finishing her 100m freestyle with a personal best of 1:12.32. She finished the finals at 1:13.11, coming in 11th overall. She also swam a personal best in the breaststroke prelims with a time of 1:31.24. She swam an almost identical time in finals, finishing in 1:31.95 and placing 11th in the region.
Elenor Whitney finished her 50m freestyle preliminary in 33.11 seconds to qualify for finals, where she swam a 32.78, making her the 10th fastest in the region for that event. In the 100m butterfly, she swam a personal best of 1:25.48 during prelims. Whitney finished her final 100m butterfly swim of the season in 1:27.53, claiming 9th place.
Ned Peters took three and a half seconds off his 50m freestyle time in prelims, touching the wall in 33.37 seconds, but failed to qualify for finals in this event. During the 100m breaststroke prelims, he recorded a personal best with a time of 1:25.20. Peters took home 10th place in the finals with a time of 1:27.14 on Oct. 30.
The Warrior swim team was the smallest at the meet and did not rank as a team in the competition, which only awards points to the top six finishers in each event.
Coach Michael Calvetti was happy with his swimmers’ performance over the weekend. “Proud of the swimmers and the results, which show how much effort went into the season,” he said. Calvetti plans to step down as swim coach after this season. He was the first swim coach for Bethel Regional High School and served as head coach for five seasons, from 2015 to 2021.
