SSC swimmers set personal bests

Saipan Swim Club swimmers celebrated the coaching debuts of Mike Blasberg and Mike Villagomez with personal best performances during the SSC-Tsunami Swimming Center Saipan Dual Meet Saturday at the Kan Pacific Swimming Pool in Marpi.

SSC had six of it 14 swimmers making personal best times in the dual meet. The list include sisters Abigail and Emma Martinsen, Bryce Daly, Junior Pamaran, Lester Lapuz, and Rena Son.

Completing the SSC roster in the dual meet were Grace and Andrew Kimball, Keanna Villagomez, Sylvia Lee, Alex Jeong, Ryu Tanzawa, Victoria Chentsova, Michael Moran, and Maxi Braig.

Abigail recorded new personal best times in the 50m backstroke and 100m freestyle swims. The 10-year-old Abigail posted 49.28 seconds in the 50m back, dropping almost two seconds from her previous time. In the 100m freestyle, Abigail clocked in at 38.04 seconds, chopping off five seconds from her previous PBT.

Abigail’s younger sister—Emma—broke her PBT in the 50m backstroke and 50m freestyle. Emma’s 1:17.89 in the 50m freestyle was 19 seconds ahead of her previous PBT. In the 50m backstroke, Emma shaved off more than 11 seconds from her previous PBT after clocking in at 1:22.76.

Bryce Daly broke the 40-second barrier in the 50m freestyle, timing in at 39.75 seconds. He then shaved off almost 10 seconds of his old PBT in the 50m backstroke, recording 51.10 seconds.

The biggest drop came from Rena Son, who chopped off 24 and 17 seconds off her previous PBTs in the 50m breaststroke and 50m backstroke swims. Son clocked in at 1:06.95 in the 50m breaststroke and 56.41 seconds in the backstroke swim.

Not to be outdone were SSC senior swimmers Pamaran and Lapuz.

The 17-year-old Pamaran shattered his old PBT in the 50m breaststroke, timing in at 38.31 seconds. He also broke his old PBT in the 100m breaststroke after posting 1:27.16.

Lapuz duplicated Pamaran’s feats, making new PBTs in the 100m breaststroke (1:30.40) and 50m freestyle (30.85 seconds).

Blasberg, who along with Villagomez took over the SSC coaching post after Michael Stewart left the island in July, had all praises for their swimmers.

“I was very pleased with our swims and I’m excited to see how much more time our swimmers can drop in future meets. Overall I think the meet was a great success. Tsunami offered some strong competition, especially for our senior swimmers, but with strong performances by our junior swimmers I think we held our own,” Blasberg said.

Saturday’s meet was Blasberg and Villagomez’s firsts as coaches of SSC. In a tournament in May, Blasberg was still assisting Stewart. Early this month, SSC hired the services of Villagomez to help run the club’s six-days-a-week training sessions.
“I was proud to see our swimmers step up and give their all, even if it wasn’t their best performance I think everyone walked off the deck with nothing left. As a coach, you can’t ask for more than that,” Blasberg said.
With SSC swimmers’ impressive results in the dual meet, Blasberg is looking forward to the next dual meet and tournaments in Guam before the year ends.
“With our workout intensity and dry land/cross training increasing I think we’re going to continue to see big improvements in our swimmers,” he said.