TELLURIDE – Members of the Telluride Torpedoes swim team dashed to the season finish earlier this month, with nearly half of the squad qualifying for championship events that drew a winning summer club swim season to its close.

Fourteen of the Torpedoes’ 29 swimmers qualified for the Summer State Meet, held in Colorado Springs August 6-8. That’s a number local swim team coach Lisa Ball is proud of, especially since in past years, fewer than six swimmers have typically qualified for this significant season-ending event.

In addition to the large percentage of local swimmers making the cut to swim at the State Meet, for the first time ever three Telluride Torpedoes qualified for the Junior Olympic State Meet, held in Grand Junction. Zane Jackson, Will Plantz and Hudson Rowan all traveled to the Junior Olympic event, with Jackson making it to the final heat in the 50 fly.

“Overall everybody did so amazingly well; I was very impressed. Virtually every swimmer took time off [their records] in almost every event they swam,” Ball says of the Torpedoes’ performances at the recent end-of-season meets.

At the Seasonal Club Championship in Colorado Springs at the beginning of August, a number of Telluride swimmers climbed into ribbon-winning territory in various events. Nine local swimmers ultimately made the long trip to Colorado Springs for the event, and among those emerged a handful of standouts. Max Dwight, who qualified for nine total events, took home a best finish of fourth (in the 100-m. breaststroke) while winning ribbons in five other events. Jaden Evans, Will Plantz, and young Megan Reich all won ribbons in every race they swam, while Hudson Rowan raced to a fourth and fifth place finish in two breaststroke events.

The biggest highlights of the weekend came from two swimmers in particular: Zane Jackson bested his qualifying time in the 50-m. fly by nearly two seconds to take first place. Sydney Evans, meanwhile, provided what Coach Ball deemed a “season highlight” with her second-place finish in the 100-m. breaststroke.

“Sydney’s been working on her breaststroke… She really wanted it, and it all came together at the State Meet,” Ball says. Evans’ winning time was nearly ten seconds faster than her previous best.

Thanks to so many Telluride swimmers pulling out all the stops at the State Meet this year, Telluride managed to place fourth among the 15 other teams in the State Meet’s small-teams division.

Due to the large number of athletes swimming for Telluride this year, the Torpedoes team drew on the skills of past Torpedoes swimmer Hannah Smith, new assistant coach this year. The team also benefited from collegiate swimmer Tom Rich, who volunteered his time at nearly every practice this summer.

Also helping to create a winning combination in 2010 was the Peaks Resort, which allowed Torpedoes athletes to use the hotel lap pool in the Mountain Village for the first few weeks of the swim season, prior to the Town Park Pool’s opening in early June.