Casey medal detectors

Left: Casey TigerSharks swimmers Jake Templar, Matthew Shaw, Jake Duggan and Ben Lodder all won medals at the 7-to-10 Metro Finals at the Melbourne Sports and Aquatic Centre on Saturday. 24719 Picture: Meagan Rogers

By Marc McGowan
A SUPERB medal haul from the Casey TigerSharks’ male contingent helped Metro South claim overall honours at Sunday’s 7-to-10 Metro Finals at the Melbourne Sports and Aquatic Centre.
TigerShark quartet Ben Lodder (two gold, two silver), Jake Duggan (one gold, three silver), Jake Templar (gold) and Matthew Shaw (bronze) claimed medals for Metro South at the short course meet.
Duggan won all four strokes at last year’s Metro Finals, but two of his rivals were finally able to rein him in.
The eight-year old prodigy still proved far too good in the boys’ eight-and-under 50m breaststroke, defeating second-ranked rival Teodor Bjelica by four-and-a-half seconds.
Fellow Metro South swimmer Bjelica won the freestyle and backstroke in the same age group, while Metro East’s Albert Shen won the butterfly.
Casey representatives Wade Stephens, Erena Koukounaras and Matthew Glover also posted top-10 finishes.
Metro South recorded 1,168 points – almost double that of second-placed Metro West – to easily win the boys’ competition.
Metro South also finished second in the girls’ event, giving the district a 349-point victory overall.
Only the top-10 swimmers from last month’s Metro South meet qualified for the Metro Finals.
Metro West, Metro East and Metro North athletes also competed.
TigerSharks head coach Ben Hiddlestone was delighted with his athletes’ results and spoke glowingly about the Metro Finals.
“Schools shy away from competitions at that age and everyone gets a participation ribbon, but competition is a natural and good thing if you handle it in the right way,” he said.
“It makes the kids more motivated in training and more focused on how to do certain things and they are validated with a medal or personal bests,” Mr Hiddlestone said.
Hiddlestone stressed that the meet was still about enjoyment for his swimmers.
“We really treat it as a fun meet for the 7-to-10 age group,” he said.
“We don’t taper, we might work on some more dives, but we’re not doing any large body of work before tapering.
“We encourage them to race one lap as fast as they can and 50m is a good sprint distance.”
Hiddlestone expects the likes of Duggan, Lodder, Shaw and Templar to go close to qualifying for next month’s Victorian 11-and-under and 12-year-old Championships.
“It’s just good for experience because if they get to the state championships as a 10-year-old, the next year as an 11-year-old they’ll have so much more experience,” he said.
“They’ll have that racing advantage and won’t be as stressed or nervous.”
Meanwhile, the older Casey swimmers are in the middle of a heavy training block ahead of their respective state championships.
Hiddlestone hopes to have 40 of his athletes swim over the three Victorian meets and those who have not qualified yet will have one final chance at the December Competition.
Fourteen-year-old Stephanie Demestichas will have no such worries after finishing third and first respectively in the open women’s 800m and 1500m freestyle at this month’s Victorian Long Distance Competition.
Her 800m freestyle performance has also booked her a place in next April’s Australian Age Championships in Sydney.

Picture: Meagan Rogers