Club in short-course carnival medal haul

Albany Swim Club performed strongly in the Albany Short Course Carnival, winning almost 100 medals across the two days of competition held at Albany Leisure and Aquatic Centre at the weekend.

With 49 members hitting the water — the most of any of the 17 participating clubs — Albany was a dominant force, with young star Mitchell Williams crowned senior swimmer of the meet for the second year running.

With a personal-best rate of 50 per cent across the meet, Albany finished with 28 individual gold medals, 29 silver and 30 bronze.

In the team and relay events, Albany walked away with five gold, three silver and one bronze to complete a terrific carnival.

Williams, who had been ill in the fortnight leading up to the competition, produced several sensational swims at the meet, but none better than his final 50m effort in the men’s open 4x50m freestyle relay as he hauled ASC from behind to claim victory over Tuart Hill by 0.22 seconds.

In the points-based swimmer of the meet standings, Williams finished on 106 points to edge out teammates Tom Gawned on 103 points and Gabriela Cannon on 81.

UWA West Coast’s Emily Holland was named junior swimmer of the meet, with Albany’s Coco Smargiassi, the best-performing local in those rankings, filling third place.

Smargiassi was one of eight Albany competitors to be named as top achievers at the meet from the My Swim data, joined by Hope Batchelor, Bronte Feathers, Jessica Williams, Hamish Bowles, Willem Freebury, Jacob Sepkus and Zachary Williams.

ASC head coach Mar-shall McAleese said several Albany swimmers had gained State qualification times in the pro-cess.