Mighty Makos wins Stamm meet; Vicksburg team finishes in 5th place|[06/02/08]

Published 12:00 am Monday, June 2, 2008

The large stable of Makos swimmers helped the Jackson program to swim away from the competition, but Sunday was still a good day for one Vicksburg swimmer.

Twelve-year-old Wally Wibowo won two events on the final day of the Stamm Invitational Swim Meet at Vicksburg City Pool. One of the wins was good enough to qualify him for some postseason swims.

“Wally made a AAA cut for zone qualifying,” Vicksburg Swim Association coach Elena English said. “His 50 (meter) freestyle was a good swim.”

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Wibowo won the event in 30.17 seconds. He had earlier won the 200-meter freestyle for the 12-and-under division in 2:32.84. He also had second in the 100 butterfly, and a sixth in the 100 backstroke.

“Wally had just spent a week at a swim camp at Auburn University and he learned some new techniques but was frustrated that it wasn’t helping his time. But I told him that while it may make you slower initially, it’s going to pay off in the long run. I think my advice helped him out today. He now gets to go to zones,” English said.

For English, Sunday’s finale wrapped up her first week as the coach with the Vicksurg Swim Association. She said nearly 30 local swimmers participated in the three day meet.

Makos, which won the team competition by nearly 800 points, brought 53 for the long-course meet.

“We had 24 for the short-course meet on Friday and 53 for Saturday and Sunday,” Makos coach Eddie Ware said. “We did well. We really like this meet because it’s close and we want to support the other the swim teams in Mississippi. I thought it was a well attended meet.”

Makos finished with 1,412 points. Sunkist was second with 624. The VSA finished fifth.