The Turlock Seadogs entered their first competition outside the Mid Valley Swim League this past weekend when the team took 18 swimmers to the Sacramento Valley Meet of Champions.

After the two-day competition, seven Seadog swimmers walked away with top-16 finishes in their respective events.

“They did amazing considering they had never been to this type of meet before. It was a large venue with over 1,000 kids swimming, so being able to push aside fear at all was awesome for me to get to see,” head coach Erich Richter said. “Some of the athletes had some issues, warming up is something that I think had a lot to do with it. In our league the kids do not get to warm up so I think that it threw off some of the kids. But realistically, I think that they did a great job considering all of the obstacles.”

Megan Hall finished fourth in the 25 yard butterfly for the 9/10 girls, Dominique Walls placed sixth in the 100 yard breaststroke event for the 15/16 boys and Henry Garcia finished seventh in the 25 yard freestyle event for the 6U boys to emerge as Turlock's top three performers. Garcia also placed 8th in the 25 yard backstroke.

The Seadogs' other top-15 finishers included Jordan Garcia who placed 12th in the 25 yard freestyle for the 9/10 boys, Matthew Hesse finished 11th in the 50 yard backstroke for 13/14 boys and Joshua Buck who placed 14th in both the 50 yard fly and 100 yard backstroke for 17/18 boys.

“I am so proud of each and every kid that competed at this meet, we not only had a lot of kids that placed but a ton of those that did not had PR's, so that was just as rewarding,” Richter said.