Huber, Waddell lead MAC at All-Star meet

Ethan Huber and Tevyn Waddell led the Mitchell Aquatic Club swimmers with first- and second-place finishes at the All-Star Meet in Lawrence, Kan.

The meet took place on Saturday, and MAC had two other swimmers place in the top-five in their age groups.

Huber, who is 10, placed first in the 50-meter backstroke in the 9-10 boys’ age group. Huber also finished third in the 100-meter freestyle, 200-meter individual medley and 100 backstroke. He placed fifth in the 200 freestyle and fifth in the 100 individual medley.

Huber finished fourth in the 9-10 boys’ high point overall standings.

MAC coach Kyle Margheim said he was happy that Huber was able to do well in all of his events. He was especially excited about the first-place finish.

“He was up against some of the top swimmers from Colorado, Iowa, Nebraska, Missouri and Kansas, so it was really fun to have him place first,” Margheim said.

Waddell, who is 13, placed second in the girls’ 200 backstroke in the 13-14 age group. She finished with a time of 2 minutes, 9.54 seconds. Her time is shy of the 17-year-old South Dakota state record in the event, which is 2:08.31 and was set in 1995.

Margheim said Waddell’s second-place finish came as a nice surprise.

“She’s in the bottom of her age group and she was competing against a lot of older girls,” Margheim said. “Her best time before this meet in that event was around 2:18, so she cut about nine seconds off her previous record, which was really surprising.”

Waddell also finished with a fifth-place finish in the 100 backstroke with a time of 1:00.40 and a fifth-place finish in the 500 freestyle with a time of 5:17.80. Her times qualified her for the sectional meet, which takes place on March 7-11 in Pleasant Prairie, Wis.

In preparation for the meet, Margheim said the swimmers worked on endurance training and practiced being mentally prepared for the high-level meet.

“We focused a lot on perfecting details and working on technique,” Margheim said. “We did a lot of sprint training and focused on the details to get the kids mentally prepared for this kind of meet.”

Other MAC swimmers that placed in the All-Star meet are as follows:

Cailey Scott finished fourth in the 50 backstroke and fifth in the 100-meter fly for the 9-10 girls’ age group; Mackenzie Miller finished fourth in the 50-meter breaststroke in the 9-10 girls’ age group; Christian Fossum placed ninth in the 100 fly in the 13-14 boys’ age group.

Tags: sports, updates, swimming