The Memorial Sea-Hawks men's and women's swimming teams will head to Halifax this weekend to compete in the 2019 Kemp Fry Invitational hosted by Dalhousie University. Traveling with the team will be 9 male and 14 female swimmers. This competition will consist of swimmers from the AUS, as well as swimming powerhouse McGill University.
The Sea-Hawks enter the weekend with 13 rookies, making them a relatively young team going into their first event of the season. Among those rookies is Polina Konstantinova, who is seeded 4th in the 100M Breast, and Natalie Smart who is a medal hopeful in the 200 IM. The Hawks are excited for the debuts of two of these female rookies.
On the male side, the swimmer to watch will be 2nd year Thomas Chafe, who is seeded 3rd in the 400M Freestyle and 6th in the 200M Freestyle for this competition, but 3rd in the AUS. On the female side is 2nd year swimmer Keelin Tucker from Ottawa, Ontario, who is a medal hopeful for the 400M IM. Both of these swimmers will look to be at the top of their games in order to be successful this weekend.
The Sea-Hawks are looking forward to the debuts of two male international rookies this season as well, Takeru Saito from Japan and Carlos Escalante from California. The Hawks are hoping that these two athletes will add some needed depth in their program for the event and moving forward.
Coach Duffy Earle commented on the teams expectations for the weekend saying "With this depth of competition, we will be pleased with fourth place finishes in our relays. We are looking for Sea-Hawks records in our men's relays and for Thomas Chafe to start off the season with a record in the 400M Freestyle."
The Sea-Hawks will look for strong performances from all of their swimmers in order to start the season off on a positive note. The rookies will have to come out of the gates hungry and play a huge part of that success, as they make up a majority of the team.
Written by: Darnell Downs