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Local swimmers set for districts
Highlands Today file photo
Lake Placid's Tammi Beach and rest of the Green Dragons will compete with Avon Park in today's district swim meet at the Rowdy Gaines Pool in Winter Haven.
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Published: October 28, 2009
SEBRING - The Avon Park, Lake Placid and Sebring swimmers and divers are looking to make a big splash in this week's district competition at the Rowdy Gaines Pool in Winter Haven.
Avon Park and Lake Placid are in Class 1A-District 5, and the Red Devils and Green Dragons swimmers get underway at 9 a.m. today with the preliminaries, while the finals are set to begin at 5 p.m.
The 10-team meet has plenty of quality swimmers from top schools such as All Saints, Lakeland Christian, Santa Fe Catholic and Mulberry.
The Avon Park boys squad is paced by sophomore Mitchell Guerndt, who is very fast in the 200-yard freestyle, the 100-yard breaststroke and the 100-yard butterfly.
Will Odham is in the 50 freestyle and James Chittum will compete in the diving competition for the Red Devils.
Chittum is the defending district diving champion after winning last year's competition with a personal-best score of 373 points.
Raeleigh Miller will compete for the Avon Park girls team in several freestyle events, and Jessica Leitch is set to go in the 100-yard backstroke event.
The Lake Placid boys team has several top swimmers with Robert Greene, Dylan Weber-Callahan, Kevin Smit and Matthew Padovano leading the way in several different events.
The Green Dragons' Edwin Velazquez and David Samperi will attempt to qualify for regionals in the diving competition.
The Lake Placid girls have had an outstanding season and are led by senior Tammi Beach, Taylor Lightsey and Marbelly Creel, who have the talent and speed to compete in numerous events for the Green Dragons.
Beach has broken several school records this season, and Lightsey is primed to have a solid meet.
Rachel Cope, Shannon Cummings and Shannon Viox have performed well this season and are peaking at the right time, and Cummings is versatile enough to compete in the diving competition.
Sebring is in the very competitive Class 2A-District 7, and the Blue Streaks hit the pool at 9 a.m. Thursday against top swimmers from Lake Gibson, Lake Wales, Lake Region and Bartow.
The Sebring boys are led by Brian Miller, Josh Heflin, Michael Bickman and George Dumont.
All four swimmers have the versatility to compete in several events for the Blue Streaks.
The Sebring girls have Julie Kirsch leading the way in many events and Kara Burger, Kate Bryan and Marissa Parsons are key contributors to the Blue Streaks' success.
McKenzie Hargaden will compete for Sebring in the diving competition.
Hargaden advanced to regionals last year with a score of 298 points.
The winners in each event automatically advance to next week's regional competition, while the other top finishers have their times go into a pool against other district swimmers.
For the complete story and pictures for this week's swimming competition, be sure to read the Highlands Today sports section.
The Highlands Today sports staff can be reached at 863-386-5837 or sports@highlandstoday.com
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