SILVERDALE — At the end of the first Narrows League swim meet between North Kitsap and Central Kitsap, the final score tally weighed heavily in favor of the Cougs, but Vikings picked up a victory in experience.

In its second meet of the season, North is still trying to get its pieces arranged into a winning format by first trying each of its swimmers in each of the events.

“We saw a lot of kids doing some different events and we had some kids that were swimming for the first time in this meet and were really nervous,” North head coach Greg Braun said. “We just have to sit and have this conversation that this is not about who’s the best swimmer in the water, it’s about your performance against the clock.”

The Vikings performed well against the clock, turning in a host of best times, while sophomore state hopefuls Ingrid Reeves and Stephanie Longmate gathered event victories for the team’s overall score.

After North started the meet with a disqualification in the 200M medley relay, Reeves picked up the pace with a 2:11.89 performance for first place in the 200M free. Inline with Reeves’ pace Kathryn Surber also picked up her best time in the event, Braun said.

Two events later in the 50M free sprint, Longmate streamlined to a picture-perfect finish with teammate Whitney Glebe as she finished first, touching in in 27.36 seconds and Glebe followed at 27.7.

Displaying her versatility, Longmate followed her 50M freestyle victory with a 5:31.36 swim to take first in the 500M free as well. While Reeves picked up first place in the 100M free with a time of 1:01.50, completing North’s sweep of the individual freestyle events.

“We have our top group of girls who are pushing themselves, looking to take some of the records off the board and change the names,” Braun said of Longmate, Reeves and senior Katheryn Parker.

At the CK meet, those three combined with Natalie Fritsch for a come-from-behind victory in the 400M free relay to end the evening with an exclamation point.

After falling behind in the early legs of the relay, Fritsch — who had been having somewhat of an off meet — picked up her pace to turn the race around with a 1:08 leg, passing the relay onto Longmate for the last leg.

“For (Fritsch) to come back and swim that, we were really pleased to see that,” Braun said.

The Vikings were even more pleased to see Longmate cut down CK’s lead by about three body lengths, overtaking the Cougars for the win in 4:08.39.

An even bigger success than garnering event wins for the Vikings were the stepping stones in confidence that the team’s younger swimmers picked up at the meet Braun said.

“All of a sudden you see these kids getting a little boost in self confidence and seeing that they are making strides then they are more encouraged to do some of the other events,” he said. “I think that throughout the season, we’re going to see some tremendous growth in those athletes.”

The quest continues as the Vikings hosts Mount Tahoma at 3 p.m. Sept. 19 before traveling to Tacoma to take on Wilson at 3 p.m. Sept. 21.