Paly Swimmers Qualify for JOs

Palisades-Malibu YMCA swimmers dropped time in almost every event during last weekend’s Memorial Day Invitational at Cal Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks. Hayley Lemoine and Kimberly Tartavull qualified for Junior Olympics in the 50 meter freestyle, bringing the total to seven Paly swimmers who will compete in that meet in August. Shelby Pascoe, Jennifer Tartavull and Mardel Ramirez, who previously qualified in other events, each added an event to swim at JOs. Pascoe qualified in the 200 breaststroke, Tartavull in the 50 freestyle and Ramirez in the 100 butterfly. Michael Lukasiak, 10, who had already qualified, just missed adding another individual event, but did well enough to place second in five events: the 200 individual medley, 50 and 100 breaststroke, 50 butterfly and 50 backstroke. Stephen Anthony, 14, swam a personal-best 2:26.86 in the 200 freestyle, first place in his previous division. He added firsts in the 100 freestyle (1:07.74), 100 breaststroke and 400 freestyle. Jordan Willmovsky, 13, was second in the red division in the 100 backstroke and third in the 200 backstroke. In the girls 13 & 14 division, Hayley Hacker won the 400 freestyle and 400 individual medley and took third in the red division in the 100 freestyle. Olivia Kirkpatrick won the 100 breaststroke and was second in the 200 breaststroke while Allison Merz won the 100 butterfly and placed third in the 200 butterfly. In the girls 15-and-over category Lemoine won the red division 200 freestyle, dropping 13 seconds, and also won the 100 freestyle and 100 breaststroke in blue times, meaning she will swim in the upper division at her next meet. Ana Silka won the white division 100 freestyle with a blue time and was third in the red division in the 100 backstroke. Jennifer Tartavull finished second in the red division 100 butterfly and was third in the 200 breaststroke and 100 butterfly. Coach Brian Timmerman said Paly’s 15-and-over girls plan to compete at the summer JOs and at least 10 of them will qualify for the meet. On Saturday, he entered swimmers in events they don’t normally swim. He entered four of his 15-year-olds in the 400 individual medley with the promise that if they could all beat Merz’s time, he wouldn’t enter them in that event again. Merz swam 6:00.30 and, to the coach’s surprise, all of the girls broke six minutes with the exception of one, who was just over at 6:00.50. “They swam faster than I thought,” Timmerman said. “They really swam well.” In their first try at 400 individual medley, all clocked blue times. Ten Paly swimmers have been invited to compete in the June Age Group Championships June 21-24 in Long Beach.