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Mary Kate Barnwell, a member of the Hale YMCA Riptides swim team, recently created quite a splash at the Eastern Zone Age Group Swimming Championships.
She finished tied for 9th in the 100yd freestyle with a time of :54.05. Additionally, her time of :24.93 in the 50yd freestyle earned her a 12th-place finish, according to Head Coach Brian Reilly.
The Eastern Zone swim meet capped off a series of championship meets for Barnwell. These included three first-place finishes at the SENECY Championships March 5 as well placing in the top at the YMCA New England Championship meet on March 18.
Hundreds of swimmers from Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New England, and New York converged at the Eastern Zone meet.
Each day, swimmers competed in preliminaries in the morning, and then the Top 20 finishers would compete again at night.
March 29, Barnwell competed in the 50yd Freestyle. She started off ranked 20th out of the 91 swimmers, but by that evening she had worked her way up to 12th place.
On April 1 she was ranked 35th out of the 90 swimmers who competed in the 100yd Freestyle. By that evening, she had propelled herself all the way up to earn the ninth-place tie. Both of Barnwell’s freestyle finishes are very close to the qualifying times for the Women’s YMCA National swim meet, which she hopes to compete at next year.
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