SSC reaches new heights

After yester-day’s morning sessions at the 2005 Arafura Games, the Saipan Swim Club continued to post solid times in the preliminary heats on the competition’s third day in Darwin, Australia.

Nina Mosley placed the highest after the morning races with a pair of fourth-place seeds. She first recorded times of 1:17.34 and 1:19.07 in the girls’ 15-16 100m backstroke and then posted times of 1:23.87 and 1:29.52 in the 100m breaststroke.

Teammate Myana Welch finished with quality times as well, as she finished sixth in the girls’ 15-16 100m backstroke with times of 1:19.30 and 1:21.10, and secured the ninth spot in the 100m breaststroke with times of 1:26.96 and 1:31.75.

The two-time Arafura gamer also finished well in the girls’ 15-16 50m butterfly by snagging eighth with times of 35.90 and 36.70, while fellow fly-girl Natasha Good took 13th with times of 38.78 and 38.47.

The women continued their assault in the agua as Amanda Johnson took the ninth seed in the preliminaries of the girls’ 13-14 100m butterfly with times of 1:17.93 and 1:18.30, and finished in 11th in both the 100m breaststroke (1:30.09 and 1:35.23) and the 50m backstroke (39.65 and 39.08).

On the boys’ side of the pool, Michael Camacho took 10th in the 13-14 100m butterfly with times of 1:19.62 and 1:19.65, but he flew in the 50m backstroke to earn the fourth slot in the preliminaries with times of 34.21 and 33.42.

Teammate Ben Babauta finished strong and never quit to take 24th in the race with times of 49.57 and 46.79. Young Cooper Graf also finished well, as he earned a pair of top 10 finishes in the 12-and-under 50m breaststroke with times of 54.88 and 52.45, and in the 50m freestyle with times of 36.06 and 36.92.

The day before, Mosley accounted for all three of the medals awarded to the CNMI, as she broke the previous records for the CNMI to take the gold in the 50m freestyle with a time of 28.36, set a new Saipan record in the 100m freestyle with a time of 1:02.86 for a bronze, and came within 8 1/100s of the first-place finisher to earn another bronze in the 50m breaststroke with a time of 37.72 in the meet’s closest race.

It was a busy day for Mosley, as she also finished sixth in the 50m backstroke with a time of 35.56, and bagged seventh in the 200-m freestyle with a 2:23.18.

The good news on the boys’ side was that Graf recorded six lifetime bests in six races, and Babauta did so in five of six as well.