Palmer, Pottle pace swimmers at ‘Y’ nationals

Local YMCA and YWCA swimmers wrapped up their winter seasons last week at their respective national championships.

Several area swimmers affiliated with YMCA club teams headed to the YMCA national championships in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. The Hurricane Swim Club, which is based at the Bangor-Brewer YWCA, traveled to Charlotte, N.C., for last week’s YWCA Nationals.

Eric Palmer, a member of the Old Town-Orono YMCA’s Canoe City Swim Club, was one of a few Maine swimmers to score at the YMCA meet. The top 16 in each event earned points. Palmer finished 11th in the 200-yard breaststroke with a personal-best time of 2 minutes, 7.83 seconds.

Palmer racked up three other personal bests in the meet. He swam the 200 individual medley in 1:59.96 for 30th place, the 400 IM in 4:19.93, and the 100 breaststroke in 1:00.36.

Mo Nazmy, a Canoe City teammate of Palmer’s, clocked a 2:20.89 in the 200 breaststroke. Matt Jordan, who competes with the Down East Family YMCA in Ellsworth, swam the 100 and 200 backstroke events in 55.69 and 2:04.43, respectively. Waldo County YMCA of Belfast’s Matt Hurley turned in a 2:12.93 in the 200 IM.

There were 241 teams and 1,463 swimmers – several of whom were coming off competition at the Phillips 66 National Championships – at the meet.

Kallie Pottle led the Hurricanes at the YWCA national championships.

Pottle scored with her time of 2:11.04, good for a 10th-place finish in the senior girls 200 back, and a 1:03.26 finish in the 100 back, which put her in 13th place.

Other Hurricanes who competed in the girls portion of the meet were Kayle Shapero, Mara Shapero, and Kelly Donahue in the senior 1000 free (11:27.91, 11:35.48, and 12:02.45, respectively), and Erin Doucette in the junior 500 free (5:51.02).

On the boys’ side, John Williams went 6:01.35 in the junior 500 free and Brent Williams swam a 6:11.27 in the same event.

Another local swimmer, Jessica Hodsdon, competed at the YWCA Nationals under the affiliation of the Bangor-Brewer YWCA, which is the home base of the Barracudas (who are also a Bangor YMCA team).

Hodsdon won the consolation final of the junior 100 breaststroke with a time of 1:14.41 and competed in the 50 free (27.53) and the 100 IM (1:11.01).