Warsaw’s boys and girls swim teams outnumbered and overmatched visiting Manchester Tuesday night, with the Lady Tigers winning 130-39 and the Tigers winning by a 151-23 count. Given that Manchester brought only six male and six female swimmers to the meet, as opposed to 27 boys and 24 girls for Warsaw, neither coach was surprised with the outcome. Manchester was also competing for a second straight night, but head coach Bill Leonhard wasn’t using that as an excuse. “We’re small in numbers, but with what we’ve got I’m very pleased with what we’ve accomplished,” he said. “We’re building, and it’ll take some time.” For the Lady Squires, the highlight of the night may have come in the 50-yard freestyle, where senior Claire Barnett and junior Allison Smith finished second and third, respectively. Barnett also finished second in the 100 butterfly and Smith third in the 100 backstroke. Junior Alexis Vernon finished second in the 100 breaststroke. Warsaw won all 12 events in both the boys and girls meets. Brenna Morgan and Erin Sandberg each won two individual races and were part of two winning relays for the Lady Tigers. Spencer Davidson and Jayden Parrett did likewise for the Tigers.. But for Warsaw, the results weren’t as important as the opportunity to work on some things, according to head coach Tony DeBrota. “Right now, we’re not focusing on times,” he said, “In a meet like this, we’re focusing more on techniques. That’s something we’ve been talking to the swimmers a lot about. For example, (last night) we went through our lineups, we didn’t focus on results, but wrote down everything we need to work on. So when we do face those teams, like Northridge or when Penn comes in for the invitational on Dec. 6, hopefully those issues will be a little bit better. “We’re blessed to have pretty big teams on both sides; we have a lot of new swimmers, but we can’t complain at all with the numbers we have. So when we’re in those meets where the other teams are maybe a little short in numbers, we’re going to have to push each other to get better.” The Tigers and Lady Tigers are in action again Saturday in a 9:30 a.m. meet at county and conference rival Wawasee. Manchester’s boys and girls teams are off until they host Maconaquah on Dec. 4.
