Strong showing by local youth swimming squads at Pentathlon

• Reprints

Katy Flesher of the Waukegan Seahorses had a nice performance at the Pentathlon meet in Palatine. | SUN-TIMES MEDIA FILE PHOTO

Updated: April 4, 2012 1:50AM

The Lake County Family YMCA’s two youth swim teams had a good go of it recently at the Blue Marlins Super Sunday Pentathlon VII at the Buehler YMCA in Palatine.

In the nine-team meet, the Vernon Hills-based Central Lake YMCA Turtles placed fifth and the Waukegan-based Northern Lake YMCA Seahorses were sixth.

Leading the way for each team were several swimmers who had high cumulative times at the meet.

In addition to team and individual point totals, swimmers were judged for the best overall final time of all five events (freestyle, breaststroke, butterfly, backstroke, and individual medley).

Turtle top finishers included:

■ Emma Zhang — fifth for girls age 8-under.

■ Hannah Yan — second for girls age 11-12.

■ Aijan Sovetova — fourth for girls age 13-14.

Leading the Seahorses were:

■ Reece Wiatrowski, — fifth for boys 8-under.

■ Vaughan Spratt-Szarzynski — fifth for girls age 9-10.

■ Katy Flesher, — fourth for girls 11-12.

“We brought a small group of only 15 swimmers, but they all shined,” Seahorse coach Mike Hewitt said. “Everyone posted season-best times and the kids got a taste of where they stand against other district swimmers.”

Turtles coach Maureen Rancourt also was happy with how things went.

“This meet was a great meet for all our swimmers,” said Rancourt. “The last few weeks after the holidays have been hard for many of our swimmers. It was great to see everyone improving times and achieving their individual goals.”

Next up for the Seahorses is a home meet Saturday at 9 am at Waukegan High School against the Lattof YMCA of Des Plaines.

The Turtles will face the Pav YMCA Posidians at the Northern Lake County YMCA in Waukegan on Saturday afternoon.