Cirincione medals at Western Zones

Jake Cirincione, 12, and a seventh-grader at Whitefish Middle School, took sixth place in the 100-meter butterfly at the Western Zones swimming championship last week in San Jose, Calif.

Cirincione's goal prior to the event was to simply "hold his own" while facing some of the fastest swimmers in the country from California, Arizona and Colorado. Cirincione achieved that by making the finals in the 100-meter butterfly and then just narrowly missing the finals in the 50-meter butterfly and the 50-meter freestyle by 0.10 second, and 0.20 second respectively.

Going into the 100-meter butterfly, Cirincione was seeded 25th out of 32 swimmers. In the preliminary heat of this event, he knocked off six seconds from his state championship time, which occurred only one week earlier. He then took another full second off his time in the finals to earn the sixth-place medal. The difference between third and sixth place in the finals was approximately half of a second.

KATS coach Brandon Rannebarger said, "Great competition does bring out the best in every athlete, and this is certainly true with Jake."