As one might expect from athletes with a flair for the artistic, when synchronized swimmers put a bow on their season, they tend to do so in style.
At least that is what one might glean from the final few months of competition for the swimmers representing the Sudbury Artistic Swim Club (formerly Sudbury Synchro).
Travelling to Nepean for the Spring Regional Meet, the Sudbury 13-15 regional team earned a second place finish in the Northeast Region, posting their highest score of the year at 77.7550.
This marked a massive improvement over their fifth place showing at the Winter Regional Meet, a noteworthy accomplishment for the team of River Davey, Sophie Patry, Bella Perron, Hannah Edwards, Brielle Fudge, Leah Fosten, Sophie Caya, Violet Shelswell and coaches Courtney Stasiuk-Mohr and Jenni Calford.
Faced with the challenge of reining the emotions of a three athlete graduating class, the 16-20 quartet slid into fifth place overall with a score of 69.1750. This signaled the end of their youth career for Maya Benoit, Ave Pagnutti and Emily Roy, with teammate Brianne Portelance eligible to return next season under the tutelage of coach Gillian Franklin.
Posting the highest figure score of all 15 teams in the field (56.1667), the SASC 10U Muppetts secured a spot in the finals, placing fifth with a solid showing in both their routines (prelims = 94.4398; finals = 87.5546) and championship scores (prelims = 177.6898; finals = 171.8047).
Blue Team - Muppetts: Ella Aho, Evelyn D'Onofrio Jones, Leah Freelandt, Brielle Thornton, Violet Timony and coaches Courtney Stasiuk-Mohr, Emily Binks and Eva Jessup.
With scores of 52.8333 (figures), 84.1396 (routine) and 163.0653 (championship), the Super Mario grouping of Aarefa Bootwala, Gabby Boudreau, Ariane Dupuis, Malaina Dupuis, Hannah Martindale, Jett Hebert (absent from competition) just narrowly missed out on qualifying for the finals.
The trio of Stasiuk-Mohr, Binks and Jessup also coached the second 10U provincial team entry from Sudbury as the athletes wrapped up their season, enjoying a little time off prior to summer camp in August.
