City of Socorro Stingrays are gearing up for a strong finish

With two weeks to go until the Sundance Aquatic Association’s Championship meet in Albuquerque, the City of Socorro Stingrays is gearing up for a strong finish.

“I’m very pleased,” said Cody Johnston, Stingrays head coach and pool manager for the city’s recreation department. “We’ve been building back our numbers post-COVID. We have a ton of new swimmers and a ton of talent and we’re doing really amazing.”

The Stingrays are coming off a strong performance against Belen in one of the final tune ups before the district meet July 16, during which swimmers qualify for the championships July 19. The league includes many of Albuquerque’s country clubs, so the competition can be fierce.

But, really the summer swimming program, with most of its costs offset by the city, is a great resource, Johnston said, adding that a USA Swimming Foundation study showing 45 percent of Hispanic kids and 79 percent of children in families that bring in less than $50,000 in annual income have little or no swimming ability.

“The city is very generous and pays for the lifeguards, and they end up becoming coaches,” he said. “So it’s run at little to no cost for the parents. And that’s completely unheard of in this league.”

What’s more, participants have something to do almost every day with practice or meets four or five days a week.

“Programs like this help build lifelong skills and a lifelong love for athletics and swimming in particular,” Johnston said. “It builds healthy relationships and there’s a really good unity thing among the townspeople. We have all kinds of people come to us, like professors’ kids, town kids. It’s an amazing group. Very good at building connections.”

The older swimmers themselves have different goals with the swimming program, although improving times is always the bottom line.

For rising junior Ben Watkins, he uses it as his summer training regimen as he works toward becoming the first New Mexico state meet qualifier from Socorro in several years.

“I enjoy Cody a lot,” he said of the coach. “And I enjoy swimming and competing. This is a competitive league but it’s also not a competitive league. It’s a lot of fun.

I’ve made a lot of friends and also had a great time working out during the summer.”

Watkins, who also plays soccer and runs track for Socorro, said what he means is it’s not cutthroat competitive like club or USSSA swimming can be.

“It’s pretty competitive for me,” he said “There’s a lot of kids at my skill level that can make me swim faster and swim better.”

Watkins nearly qualified for state in the 50-meter freestyle, and should make it this year, and he also has hopes of qualifying in the 100 free, as well.

As a matter of fact, many of the Warriors swim team members train with the Stingrays, said Johnston, who is one of the school team’s coaches.

“We use this for our offseason for high school,” he said. “It’s had a huge impact on the high school swim team. We’re breaking school records. We’re hoping to have a qualifier for state this year and in two years, we’re expecting even more qualifiers. A huge thanks to coach (Kirsten) Dowd and coach (Denise) Gilson for volunteering their time.”

For other swimmers, the Stingrays represent a fun way to keep up fitness levels during the summer.

Abby Cadol, who will be a sophomore, runs cross country and track and has been swimming with the Stingrays since first eligible.

“I started with the eight and unders and have been doing it ever since because my friends were all doing it,” she said. “It really helps with running. I do it as off-season training for track and cross country and I feel like it really helps my performance in all of my sports.”

So, it’s not so much about bringing home swim trophies or ribbons, Cadol said, although that would be nice.

“It would be really cool if I did well in that,” she said of the upcoming championships. “But I think my main goal is improving my times. I started out this summer getting the same times where I ended last season. I was really excited about that and hopefully I’ll get a lot of new personal bests.”