Pronghorns swimmers continue to set records

By Lethbridge Herald on November 9, 2021.

Broken records continue to fall in the University of Lethbridge Pronghorns swim teams’ wake.

That trend continued last weekend as the Horns headed to the west coast for the Odlum Brown College Cup in Vancouver.

It also sets them up nicely for the Canada West Championship as the Pronghorns wrapped up their third consecutive week of competition.

Last weekend’s meet included all of the Canada West schools which will participate in the conference championship, along with Simon Fraser University that competes in NCAA division 2.

On the men’s side, the Horns broke four more school records, totaling eight new program records this season.

Lethbridge product Apollo Hess completed a hat trick of breaststroke records and now holds a record in all three distances in that discipline.

Opening the meet with the 50m breaststroke, Hess not only broke the school record, but also the meet record in the preliminaries on his way to finishing second in the finals.

He also broke the 200m record and finished third in that event, while finishing second in the 100m breaststroke.

The Pronghorns had four men qualify for A finals with Chris Alexander finishing fourth in the 50m backstroke. He was also eighth in the 100m back.

Parker Brown was fifth in the 100m freestyle, Adam Stromberg placed sixth in 50m freestyle and Steffen Botha completed the Pronghorn top-10 finishes with a ninth place finish in the 100 individual medley.

The Pronghorns set new school records in the men’s relays in the 4×50 freestyle for the second time this season and also broke the school record in the 4X50 medley relay.

Lethbridge placed second in both events behind the UBC Thunderbirds.

The Pronghorns women’s swimmers all posted season best times.

Sophie MacLean, Hunter Stewardson and Casara Holm swam new Pronghorn all-time top 10’s and will look to continue that trend at the Canada West Championships.

As a team, the women’s side finished sixth in the 4X100 medley relay, seventh in the 4X50 medley and eighth in the 4X100 freestyle relay.

The Canada West Championship is Nov. 26-28 in Edmonton hosted by the University of Alberta.