{"id":132227,"date":"2026-06-07T18:02:05","date_gmt":"2026-06-08T00:02:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/cortez-water-dragons-using-strong-foundation-for-big-summer-goals\/"},"modified":"2026-06-07T18:02:05","modified_gmt":"2026-06-08T00:02:05","slug":"cortez-water-dragons-using-strong-foundation-for-big-summer-goals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/cortez-water-dragons-using-strong-foundation-for-big-summer-goals\/","title":{"rendered":"Cortez Water Dragons using strong foundation for big summer goals"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Josalyn
Josalyn Magie propels herself through a butterfly stroke during the Girls 13-14 200-meter IM race at the Cortez Summer Open, May 29-31 at the Cortez Municipal Pool. (Erika Alvero\/Special to The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

CORTEZ \u2013 For any youth athletic program, turnout isn\u2019t a sign of passing interest, but of a long-standing community investment that\u2019s bearing its fruit.<\/p>\n

The Cortez Water Dragons have earned the bumper crop of youth athletes who\u2019ve dedicated countless laps in the Cortez Recreation Center indoor and municipal outdoor pools over the recent months \u2013 or in many cases, years.<\/p>\n

Head coach Sarah Brock and her coaching staff have a good thing going, and while top placements only tell a small part of the tale, they\u2019ve become a fun added byproduct of a program that\u2019s bringing out the best in their nearly 100 participants.<\/p>\n

\u201cOut team is growing in numbers, skills, diversity of events and community support,\u201d said Brock, who joins Nikki Berdzar, Karen Maisey and Stephen Tarnowski on the coaching staff in charge of the eager swimmers.<\/p>\n

The Water Dragons used strength in numbers to pile up over 4,000 team points and a comfortable first-place team showing in their lone home meet of the season \u2013 the Cortez Summer Open that took place at the Cortez Municipal Pool over the weekend of May 29 to 31.<\/p>\n

Last summer, the Water Dragons took third-place in their home pool in the Seasonal State meet \u2013 competed between programs that aren\u2019t year-round \u2013 an accomplishment that has the Dragons hungry for more later this summer when they compete in the Western Slope championships in mid-July, then the state championships in Alamosa over the weekend of July 31 to Aug. 2.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

With only half the season in the books, the Water Dragons are already ahead of the curve, with 50 different swimmers having posted state qualifying times across 216 events \u2013 a number that exceeded their total from the end of last season.<\/p>\n

With the large numbers, the Water Dragons have also focused on maintaining a family atmosphere, which helps the new swimmers \u201cget their feet wet\u201d when tackling their first competitions.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have beautiful team camaraderie, the seasoned swimmers take the younger swimmers under the wing to help make sure their first swim meet isn\u2019t so overwhelming,\u201d said Brock, \u201cand while swimming is largely an individual sport, it helps them realize they\u2019re also part of something much bigger.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Cortez Summer Open served as a showcase to community the depth of the Water Dragons program, with 12-year-old Noah McCabe taking high-point winner for the boys in the meet, while 10-year-old Cora Brock accumulated the most points among the girls among over 170 athletes in the meet.<\/p>\n

Several athletes tried their hand at the 400-meter freestyle, with McCabe, Breckyn Berdzar, Fynn Anderson, Avery Hendry, and Ben Carpenter all finishing in the top three in their respective age groups, while Parker Pearson and Leslee Martinez took top-two finishes in the 1500 meters.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been fun to watch them push themselves to try the \u201cscary events\u201d early in the season,\u201d Brock said, \u201cwe can see their confidence grow while still keeping the sport fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

During their meet, the Water Dragons honored Carpenter, along with Miles Anderson and Weston Webb, longtime swimmers who had become \u201cbig brothers\u201d in the program as they round out their Water Dragons careers.<\/p>\n

As with the many nonprofit youth sports programs in the region, the Cortez Water Dragons lean heavily on the community to support the costs of operating under the umbrella of USA Swimming, which includes insurance, coach certification, pool usage fees and maintenance \u2013 all of which make sponsorship critical to sustain the competitive learning environment that the Water Dragons have created.<\/p>\n

For more information about the Water Dragons\u2019 season or to get involved as a sponsor, head to their Facebook (Cortez Water Dragons) and Instagram (cortez_waterdragons) pages online.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

swimming program returns plenty of veteran athletes from 2025 third-place state showing<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":132228,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6313],"tags":[28,514,6419],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-132227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports-2","tag-headlines","tag-swimming","tag-tj-trueanthem"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=132227"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132227\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/132228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132227"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=132227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}