Jeffrey Goodman, YMCA of Northwest Louisiana Marketing and Develop and Staff Reports
Bossier City’s Katherine Bush and Ellie Kairschner, both high school state champions, are among almost 300 swimmers competing in the annual Long Course Spring Invitational this weekend at the BHP Billiton YMCA in Shreveport.
The event is being hosted by the Red River Aquatic Club, the Y’s youth swim team. With 282 swimmers competing, it is the largest meet it has held to date at the BHP YMCA Aquatics Center.
The meet started Friday afternoon and runs through Sunday.
Mixed gender relays (two boys, two girls per team) will be held on Sunday.
Kairschner, a junior at Benton, repeated as Division II champion in the 100 backstroke and 100 butterfly at the LHSAA state meet in May.
Bush, a junior at Loyola, won the Division III 100 freestyle and finished second in the 50 freestyle.
Among the other local swimmers competing are Sarah Holt and Evelyn Zhang of Shreveport.
Holt recently became Louisiana’s first finalist at the YMCA Short Course National Championships.
Zheng was runner-up to Kairschner in the 100 backstroke in the state high school meet.
The NWLA Mudcats will be contesting events on Saturday at and at 2 p.m. Sunday.
According to a YMCA press release:
“The NWLA MudCats is a team that started as a team for The Swim School and grew into its own independent team. Currently it has 14 athletes ranging in ages 8-30 with different types of exceptionalities ranging from Down syndrome to Austism and Cerebral Palsy. The NWLA MudCats are a unified team which means the competitions consist of able body athletes competing alongside athletes with special needs.”
