Meet was first of many

By Bridget Cook
THE Casey Tiger Sharks held their first official Swimming Victorian sanctioned meet on the weekend.
The event, held at Casey RACE Aquatic Centre Cranbourne, was successful for swimmers, parents, volunteers and officials.
Swimmers are able to use the times they swam at the meet to qualify for the Victorian State Championships.
Members from many regional clubs, including Traralgon, Mornington Peninsula Flyers, Lilydale and South Gippsland Bass, attended.
In the past six years, Casey Tiger Sharks have risen from ranking 31st in Victoria to third.
City of Casey councillor Geoff Ablett said the new pool at Casey RACE has been invaluable in strengthening the club’s results and increasing its membership base from the Cranbourne area.
“The next project for council, working with the club, is to find temporary grandstand seating to be used for expanding the number of seats for spectators and swimmers for the increased popularity the meet will have in the summer,” he said.
“The starting blocks need to be fixed to the deep end of the pool and not the floating partition to better cater for 25m races.”
The recently completed winter season saw the Casey Tiger Sharks’ first swimmer, Josh Beaver, compete in Hawaii at the Junior Pan Pacific Games as part of the junior Australian team.
Josh, from Tooradin, has been with the clubsince he was eight. His recent placing of sixthin the 100 metre backstroke final at the JuniorPan Pacs places him as one of the top 10backstroke swimmers in the world for 17 to18-year-olds.