The Central Plains Sea Lions swimming club took part in the ManSask Championships in Saskatoon on the weekend. Head coach Rob Pehura explained the event is big for the kids he works with.

"It's kind of our top end where they start to move from in-province to out-of-province. This meet rotates between Winnipeg and either Saskatoon or Regina on a yearly basis. This one was in Saskatoon. I had three swimmers come with me, and it attracted kids from as far West as B.C. and then brought some kids in from Ontario."

Matthew McEwing, Carson Pehura and Anika Dyck all participated in the competition, with Pehura coming away with two medals, including a gold in the 14-15 year old men's butterfly competition.

Coach Pehura spoke about how the participants held up against tough competition.

"Matthew is 19, he swims in the senior division, which is really tough, because it's 16 and over. He had some high finishes, fourth in the 200 buttterfly, he made A-finals in most of his swims. He was very close to making Western cuts."

"Carson performed really well in the butterfly, he had an eighth-place finish in 50m fly, he won bronze in the 100m fly and won gold medal in 200m fly, which is probably one of the worst races for kids wanting to swim."

"Unfortunately, Anika was sick at this meet. I was really looking forward to watching her swim. She did, however, swim really well considering the circumstances. She had her best times on Friday, not as fast as she would have liked, and I would have liked. But as the meet went on, Friday was tough, but she made some A-finals, and held in there really tight. Then she got into Saturday, and her strong race was that day. She finished fifth or sixth in that one. That was a tough one for her because that was 200m backstroke, which she really excels at."

Coach Pehura notes that he's happy with how the weekend went for all the athletes.

"The kids did really well. We had some really solid finishes."