Familiar sounds filled the Astoria Aquatic Center over the weekend: starting guns, the splash of water as swimmers hit the water and spectators cheering on athletes.

Saturday was the yearly Nygaard Invitational hosted by Astoria High School.

The event serves as the first meet of the year for local swimmers. Head coach Paul Gascoigne and his staff use the invitational as a building block for the season. With a mix of returning and new swimmers, the Fishermen had some good individual and team performances.

The boys finished in fourth place behind defending state champion Newport, Taft and Scappoose. The girls finished second behind Newport, with a total score of 227.

“I was overall generally happy,” Gascoigne said. “We had some good swims, our new swimmers showed some great potential. First meet of the year you don’t know what to expect, kids are still out of shape and trying to build up their performance level.”

Gascoigne said the meet had a higher turnout than recent years and was almost a carbon copy of what his swimmers will see at the district championships in February. He said having Newport show up was a huge success for both his team and Seaside, as it gave swimmers a chance to compete against the best 4A has to offer.

“Newport’s always strong,” Gascoigne said. “It’s great for our kids to see that level of competition.”

The Fishermen had some standout swims from some of their returners. The girls won the first event of the meet, which was the 200-yard medley relay. The team of Kayla Freeman, Lillian Smith, Hazel Towsey-French and Rylie Knight won with a time of 2:23.13.

On the boys side, the returning foursome of Casey Dopp, Gabriel White, John Ero and Finn Bizzell had good individual and team performances. Behind an incredible anchor split from Bizzell, they took the 200-yard relay over Newport, as Bizzell swam down Newport’s anchor leg Jahan Eibner.

Bizzell won the boys 200-yard freestyle with a very good early season time of 1:58.54. The time was more than 13 seconds faster than Connor Brown, of Newport, who finished second.

Seaside with building blocks for future

Seaside enters the season with a new coach as Natalie Chrisman takes over the swimming program.

The Seagulls have a good mix of returning and new swimmers. Mika Cannon comes back as the leader of the boys side and he had a good opening day performance. Cannon won the 50-yard freestyle in a time of 25.53, while also leading the Seagulls relay teams. On the girls side, Kayla Reckmann was the leading finisher among the local swimmers in the 200-yard freestyle. Her time of 2:40.22 was good for fifth place.

The Seagulls team of Faith Handy, Ella Crater, Reckmann and Ellie Smith had a solid debut performance in the girls 200-yard freestyle relay, as they finished second behind Astoria.

Overall, both the Seagulls girls and boys finished in sixth place. The performance gives the Seagulls a starting spot to build throughout the season.