Santa Rosa swimmers make a splash

<p>Members of Santa Rosa’s Redwood Empire Synchronized Swimming Team were winging home from Florida on Monday, laden with medals, national team towels and broad smiles after triumphing at the national competition in Gainesville.</p><p>The 10-girl team, based at the Oak Park Swim Club in Rincon Valley, headed to the Esynchro Age Group Championships determined to place in the Top 10.</p><p>Not only did they meet their goal — the team placed fourth out of more than 40 of the best teams from across the nation — but they far exceeded their own expectations.</p><p>“They just swam so well. They won handily,” praised coach Marion Kane Elston.</p><p>Several of the girls even captured first-place medals, making them tops in the nation for their age and event. And the youngest, 12-year-old Halle Arnold, was one of 16 girls selected to attend the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs in August, where she will have a shot at making the national team in her age group.</p><p>“I’ve always wanted to be in the Olympics since I first started,” said the seventh grader, who has been training for half her life.</p><p>Arnold’s performance, placing second in the technical figures competition, second in solo and second in a duet with Emily Fehrman, also 12, was made all the more impressive considering the fact that she contracted a stomach virus on top of a skin infection right before she left for the nine-day meet, forcing her to delay her flight.</p><p>“I’m incredibly proud of her. She really put her heart into it,” mom Catherine Arnold said by phone from St. Augustine, where they were spending a few days touring and relaxing after Saturday’s finals.</p><p>Alex Cox, 17, a senior at Rincon Valley Christian School, and Ingrid Lundblad, who swims on the synchro team for the University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio, Tex., took a first for their duet. On top of that, Lundblad took home third-place medals for her technical figures and her solo routine.</p><p>And Cox, along with Justine Armenier, 15, and Mia Konjikusic, 16, both of Analy High, also placed first in the nation for their trio performance. The three girls were particularly challenged because they were required to compete in a category of older girls. Since Cox turns 18 in December, the whole trio was obliged to compete against 18 and 19-year-olds.</p><p>“We just can’t absorb it,” said Elston, a legendary coach in the sport who trained 51 U.S. national and international champions in her day.</p><p>Konjikusic, a lithe 6-foot 2-inch athlete, also wowed the judges and placed first among more than 200 girls in her age class for “figures,” a series of uniform and precision maneuvers.</p><p>“I was really shocked and I still feel kind of in shock. It felt amazing though. It was an experience of a lifetime,” she said on Monday, taking a rare day of rest out of the water before diving back into the pool to train for another meet in Tucson, Ariz., next week.</p><p>Grace Hayes, 15, a home schooler, took third for her solo, and a fourth in the nation for her technical figures.</p><p>“Where other people push through the water, Grace flows. She just has a wonderful mesmerizing effect,” Elston said.</p><p>The septuagenarian coach, who organized the local team 10 years ago, said the girls faced a series of setbacks in previous years, everything from a broken ankle to a concussion to a fall on the deck that landed one girl in the hospital.</p><p>But this year the stars seemed to be aligned in their favor.</p><p>“No one did poorly,” she praised. “Everyone did so well.”</p>