In a recent meet against a young Maine Central Institute team, the Belfast High School swimmers and divers turned in 14 best times and Bob Winslow, coach of the Lions, collected his 350 dual meet win.
Winslow, who is in his 44th year of coaching, has guided the Lions to 16 Kennebec Valley Conference championships, three Class B state championships and five runner-up team finishes at the state championship meet. The Lions have not had a losing season since 1988.
He recalls when winning was not the Lions’ expectation.
“In the early years, we did not have a lot of interest. I remember going to swim Harvey Wheeler’s teams at Falmouth when Harvey had more managers than I had swimmers,” Winslow said.
Wheeler was elected to the Maine Swimming Hall of Fame in 2006. His Falmouth boys’ teams won four Class B state titles.
Including those early years, Winslow’s teams have lost only 151 dual meets. In addition to 350 wins, the Lions have six dual-meet ties.
“I like good meets, win or lose,” the Maine Swimming Hall of Fame Board member said.
In addition to preparing workouts and coaching the swimmers during the workouts, Winslow remains committed to studying the opponent’s roster and analyzing individual performances to assemble lineups that offer his teams a pathway to victory.
“It is still fun. I concentrate on developing each of the swimmers,” explained the former Maine Coach of the Year, who said developing breaststrokers is a goal for this year’s team.
Rudy Schnetzer, a junior co-captain, with racing skills in the backstroke, individual medley and freestyle, sophomore butterflyer and individual medley racer Luke Hamlin, junior sprinter Jesse Kulbe and distance freestyler Fletcher Marriner are leading the Lions in preparing for the second half of the dual meet season, the KVAC and the Class B state meet.
Bangor edges Ellsworth
In last Friday’s dual meet that featured several championship-quality performances, David Barnett’s Bangor High Rams won the 400 free relay by sixth-tenths of a second and earned a four-point meet win over the defending Class B champion Ellsworth Eagles.
Junior Colby Prouty split 48.5 on the anchor leg of the relay as the Rams finished in 3:25.4, Ellsworth in 3:26. The Eagles led after 200 yards before Bangor freshman Carson Prouty split 50.4 to swim the Rams into gold-medal contention.
Ellsworth’s Camden Holmes, winner of the 50 free (22.7), recorded a 49.4 final leg of the relay. The Rams also claimed third in the relay when Payton Campbell’s anchor leg swam past the Eagles.
Carson Prouty recorded an impressive 2:03.4 individual medley while Colby Prouty touched in a 1:02.9 100 breaststroke after also winning the 100 free in 49.4. Holmes touched second at 49.8.
Waddell swimming well
Williams College’s Emma Waddell is the ninth-ranked 50 free swimmer in NCAA Division III swimming.
The Bangor High graduate’s season best of 23.5 is half a second off the nation’s fastest performance of 23 seconds flat.
Johnston at FSU
At Florida State, Mount Desert Island’s Leila Johnston clocked a 50.8 in the 100 free and a 54.5 in the 100 butterfly for the Seminoles at the University of Georgia Invitational earlier this month.