For the 30th time, Seymour put on a successful Summer Splash — a three-day swimming event held at Shields Park Pool.
Due to COVID-19 last summer, the event wasn’t able to take place, but it was back like it never left from Friday to Sunday this past weekend. Nearly 500 swimmers from mainly central and southern Indiana were in attendance to compete.
The teams and clubs who raced this weekend are as follows: Seymour Swimming, Center Grove Aquatic Club, Zionsville Swim Club, Donner Swim Club, East Central Swim Team, Riverside Aquatics Club, Cardinal Community Swim Club, Pacesetter Aquatics, Terre Haute Torpedoes, Indian Creek Aquatic Club, Mooresville Area Swim Team, Jennings County Swim Club, Archway Swim Club, Decatur Township Aquatic Club, Sea Dragon Swimming, Shelby County Aquatic Club, Agon, Connersville Area Swim, TNT Swimming, Fort Leavenworth Lancers, Milan Aquatics, Vincennes Swim Team.
Center Grove brought the most swimmers on Sunday with 34, and Seymour had the fourth-most with 18. Seymour had 55 total swimmers compete across the three days.
For Lane Mellencamp, 13, who started competing in this event about three to four years ago, he was pleased to have the Seymour Splash back in business.
“Not being able to have it last year was kind of a bummer,” he said. “It’s definitely really cool every year we have this meet. All the parents and kids come around. and it’s fun. I think everyone has a good time.”
Mellencamp competed all three days for Seymour, and on Sunday morning, he raced in the boys 13-14 100 LC meter butterfly and boys 13-14 200 LC meter IM.
The incoming eighth-grader said he was looking to improve his times by focusing on his strokes, and he thinks he did a solid job of that on Sunday.
“I was pretty happy,” Mellencamp said. “My times were good, my places were good, good overall.”
Sydney Bush and Lauren Bode, both 13-year-olds for Seymour, also have been competing in this event for a couple of years now.
Bush and Bode both admitted the amount of people racing every day can become overwhelming at times.
“It’s exciting, but it’s also kind of tiring,” Bush said.
“Yeah, when there’s so many people, you’re excited to see how everyone else is doing, but it’s also like, ‘Am I going to be the slowest one there?’ so that’s kind of worrying,” Bode said.
Bush and Bode both raced in heat 4 of the girls 13-14 200 LC meter IM. Bush wasn’t as pleased with her time as Bode was, but she was pleased to see some of her teammates do well.
“It’s nice seeing people you’ve known for a long time do well, too,” Bush said.
Like Mellencamp, the two girls will be going into eighth grade this fall.
All three compete for Seymour Swimming, which they said has more of a spring swimming season.
For the younger athletes like Mellencamp, Bush and Bode, it’s a positive experience getting to see swimmers of all ages in one spot, including some of the swimmers on Seymour’s High School team.
“It’s really fun to see how fast some of the kids are,” Bode said. “And just hope that if you practice enough, you can get to be there someday.”
Some of the Owls will be competing again Tuesday at Center Grove, which just opened a new facility. It will be Seymour’s first time swimming in Center Grove’s new pool.
Much like Seymour’s pool at Shields Park, the new Center Grove pool expanded from 25 meters to 50 meters.
It’s a packed month for Seymour Swimming. The Seymour Splash kicked off a long stretch of competition, which includes state meets and divisionals/zones in the next couple of weeks.
“We’re happy we’re back (competing again),” Seymour Swimming head coach Dave Boggs said.