McALLEN — A year ago McAllen Memorial freshman Stacia Benitez was roaming the halls of Cathey Middle School and prepping for the STAAR test.
Fast forward to 2016 and Benitez is District 30-6A’s top swimmer and hanging multiple gold metals around her neck after a peak performance at the district’s swim meet Saturday at the MISD Natatorium at McAllen Rowe.
Benitez captured gold in the 100-yard backstroke, the 200-yard medley relay, the 400-yard freestyle relay and silver in the 100-yard butterfly, helping propel the Memorial Mustangs to the District 30-6A team championship while also being named Athlete of the Meet. Not bad for her first district competition, and yet Benitez said she never thought she’d be competing at the highest of levels in high school.
“Uh, no because last year I wasn’t doing so well and I kept on adding time and I thought I was going to stay the same forever,” said the 15-year-old, who trained on the club level with Pharr Phast Swim Club. “But then I started training harder, and I started doing two-a-days and sometimes three-a-days, and I just started getting better and better.”
Benitez wasn’t the only new face that surfaced from the pool Saturday that led their team to a league crown. McAllen High sophomore Shaine Casas spearheaded the Bulldogs into first place — unseating 2015 district champ McAllen Memorial — with golds in the 200-yard freestyle, 100-yard backstroke, 200-yard medley relay and the 400-yard freestyle relay. Casas set meet records in the 200 freestyle and 100-yard backstroke, and the Bulldogs set a meet mark in the 200-yard relay as well.
What’s more the McAllen teams dominated nearly every race and finished one, two and three in both seven-team divisions. And while the Rowe boys and girls teams both finished third, they won their share of gold and also occupied the metal platform multiple times.
In all the McHi Bulldogs earned 13 first and second places to help them win the boys title. Swimmers such as Errol Lizzotte, Max Saenz and Thomas Wilkins were also valuable team members winning golds and participating in the relays. Those performances helped pile up points for the Bulldogs and give them confidence as they head to regionals in Brownsville later this week.
“That (district championship) was our goal from the beginning. They (boys) swam well but there’s a lot of work have to.”
Kaminski said there was some pressure on the Bulldogs boys to win because they were expected to win the title — and they did. He said the McHi girls, who came in second to Memorial, performed their best and he was proud of that. McHi’s Shelby Swanson set a meet record time in winning the 500-yard freestyle.
“I could not have asked my girls to swim any faster than they did,” Kaminski said. “They were supposed to take third but they took second (just five points behind Memorial) so they are heartbroken, but I think our girls had just as good a meet as our guys. It was just unfortunate they could not win it. They swam their tails off.”
The McHi coach said he was not completely surprised to see Casas and Benitez, two young underclassmen, rise to the top and lead their respective teams with outstanding performances.
“Shaine and Stacia have been in the sport for so long and their names are known throughout the Valley,” Kaminski said. “So performing way they did is not surprising because it’s them, but that they’re freshmen and sophomores and that they can do it now at such a young age.”
He added that the goal of Valley swimmers should not be to compete against other Valley swimmers but to measure up against those outside the RGV.
Memorial coach Timothy Nelson said he was proud of his athletes’ performances and the hard work they put it this season. Besides Benitez, outstanding swimmers for Memorial included Hannah Bradford and Megan Blevins to name a few.
Nelson said he is already is looking forward to taking his hard-working squads to the regional meet next week against regional competitors. He said his team has to be ready.
“We gotta go out and do it again. Next man up,” said Nelson. “