PIERRE -- Seven members of the Mitchell Aquatic Club won individual events at the 2014 MAC Winter Invite over the weekend in Pierre.
About 200 swimmers attended the MAC hosted event and 12 MAC swimmers recorded qualifying times for the winter state swimming meet, which is Feb. 27- March 1 in Pierre.
MAC head coach Kyle Margheim said hosting the event in Pierre helps the MAC swimmers go up against different competition and prepares his team for the state meet held in Pierre later in the season.
"Overall, I thought the meet went really well," Margheim said. "It's exciting to see where we are at right now, and I think we showed that we are becoming a more diverse club with seven different kids winning events at all age levels."
Winning events for MAC on the boys side were Ethan Huber, Gage Nelson and Lukas Bennett.
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Huber won three events, including the 1,650-meter freestyle, 100 backstroke and 200 backstroke, in the 13-14 age group.
Nelson won the 500 freestyle and 1,650 freestyle in the 15-19 age group, while Bennett won the 100 butterfly in the 9-10 age group.
"We end up racing the Sioux Falls kids a lot throughout the season and I thought we had a good turnout for our first year hosting an indoor event in Pierre," Margheim said.
On the girls side, Tevyn Waddell, Paige Phinney, Cailey Scott and Lucie Anderson each won at least one event. Waddell took first place in three events in the 15-19 age division, winning the 100 freestyle, 200 breaststroke and 200 butterfly. Waddell will be back in action this week, as she will be competing at the USA Swimming Junior National Meet Thursday through Saturday in Federal Way, Wa.
Phinney won the 100 butterfly in the 11-12 age group, while Scott and Anderson each earned wins in the 13-14 age group. Scott won the 1,650 freestyle and Anderson won the 200 backstroke with their times registering as the top times in the state.
"We had a lot of new kids this fall, and we worked on a lot of fundamentals with those kids. Now we can start to work on some of the finer details," Margheim said. "We will be able to keep building up endurance on certain events with our swimmers and hopefully find more success throughout the season."
A total of 41 MAC swimmers competed and 18 swimmers earned top-3 finishes at the event.
