Malvern swimmers bring home gold and silver at city championships

Malvern swimmers bring home gold and silver at city championships. Malvern swimmers from Julisa Cummins, left, Sarah Jarvis, Sarah Schmidt and Zoe Goodman competed at the swimming championships held recently at the Etobicoke Olympium. Photo/COURTESY

Paulina Bonds, Rachel Shin and John Neisner led a strong Malvern showing at the Toronto high school short course swimming championships held Feb. 18.

The local high school's boys squad, led by Neisner's four-medal performance, earned an overall silver medal at the Toronto-wide high school championships, which took place at the Etobicoke Olympium.

The girls, led by Bonds' quadruple-medal performance, were solid gold, enroute to a fourth consecutive citywide title.

Malvern Collegiate's junior boys also won the earlier city regional championships.

The new results are befitting a school and community that stood unified and most-adamantly opposed last year to the Toronto school pool closures issue.

Matter of fact, Malvern Collegiate, which also houses Beach Swim and a few feeder school programs, was the first to receive a reprieve, thanks wholly to a passionate parent-led group and a very resourceful swim community.

Coach Cori Skuffman, a former student and swim team member at Malvern, called the campaign to save the school pool "a true community effort" that combined to generate $11,000 in cash donations.

The donations, which meant the pool could remain open until a final decision was made early in 2010, flooded in from the community and from alumni around the world.

"We were probably the first school to take the closure issue seriously, and we were the first ones to be reopened," said Skuffman, who led the charge in the fall of 2008 and helped formulate a template that was used to restructure other programs that were at risk of closure.

"If we had to use another pool we certainly wouldn't have won (the city championship)," added co-coach Holly Kee, who began teaching and coaching the swim program at Malvern 35 years ago.

"Just from past experience when our pool has been shut down for various reasons we don't have as many people who will travel - it's a huge attraction."

Case in point: Northern Collegiate and Riverdale Collegiate, who both traditionally have strong swimming programs, were down for closure, but were saved at the eleventh hour. The pools reopened in February.

"All their students had to train offsite," said Skuffman, and, as a result, they didn't fair as well at the city championships.

"There were some schools that weren't even there because they lost their pool and couldn't get the kids, or find a coach, to take them to train somewhere else."

On that note, others have stepped up to help keep Malvern Collegiate a swimming power and should be acknowledged.

"One of our teachers, Virginia Dawe, went out a couple years ago and got her aquatics qualifications," said Skuffman. "She was limited in how she could help, but she's taken a big burden off of Holly and I."

Of the 80 swimmers at Malvern Collegiate who turnout out to start the season, and enter the recent regional championships, 65 qualified for the Toronto finals.

Twenty-five of those (including 10 relay teams) qualified for the provincial OFSAA championships, which just took place March 2 and 3 at the Etobicoke Olympium.

Malvern Collegiate's girls finished third last year and won OFSAA in 1994, '95, '96 and '99.

Skuffman is hoping for a top-five finish for the girls.

"There are 325 schools going so that would be a pretty good finish."

Check www.insidetoronto.com for updates on how the Malvern swimmers did at OFSAA.