SAN MARCOS- On Friday, the Comets completed five events. These included four 50-yard strokes—butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke, and freestyle—and one 100-yard IM, in which they had to swim all four strokes under two minutes.
The Waterman Pentathlon was the first swim meet for the 2025 season, named after the former women’s swim team coach, Patty Waterman.
Head coach Scott Lawson described the meeting as an introductory meeting, “It is also to check and see if they have retained what they have learned, such as how to pace, breathe, and swim the stroke correctly.”
Women’s swimmer Tianna Timmons shared her expectations for the pentathlon, “It was just to have as much fun as possible. It was the season’s first meet, and I just wanted to get a feel for my first year swimming on the college team.”
Brian Otto , men’s swimmer also shared his expectations for the pentathlon, ” Not much, because the season just started. I’m kind of hoping to get the same times in high school, possibly a little faster.”
The Comets started strong with the 50-yard butterfly in the rain and fogginess, with the pool extremely heated, you could see the obvious climate change between the two. The Women’s fastest time was 30.88 from Ruby Jones, and the Men’s quickest time was 28.22 from Lei Jin.
In the two events following the butterfly stroke, it looked as if the swimmers started to get tired as their time decreased. It also seemed that the breaststroke was the most difficult stroke to perform. Tianna Timmons and Brian Otto stated after the meet that they felt they must improve on the breaststroke.
The backstroke seems to be the swimmers’ favorite stroke. Both Timmons and Otto stated that the backstroke felt like their best stroke. Timmons’ time was 45.54, and Otto’s time was 32.06.
In the post-meet interview, Timmons talked about how she felt when she went on the starting block the first time compared to the last time, “The first time I went up on the block, I felt anxious because I wasn’t sure how I was going to perform yet… the last time, I was a lot more confident because everything else went well.”
In the post-meet interview, Otto talked about his goals for this upcoming season, “Getting faster and starting to get ready for the next water polo season, as well as just improving all around.”
The 100 IM was the last stroke of the meet, “the 100 IM was really good. That was actually my best one today.” Timmons said.
Otto also shared his thoughts on swimming the 100 IM: “It was alright. I didn’t do the best because I got peer-pressured into dry-scooping Gatorade. I definitely could have gone a lot faster, but I dropped two seconds from the trial overall, so I’d say it went pretty well.”
The Waterman Pentathlon was a successful introductory meet, despite the weather challenges.
The Comets next home swim meet is on Friday, March 21 at noon.
