Branton named swimmer of the year at Canadian university championships

Port Lambton’s Shona Branton won two golds, a silver a bronze and broke two meet record at the USports swimming championships held in Montreal this past weekend, swimming for the Western Mustangs.

A Wallaceburg District Secondary School grad, Branton was named swimmer of the year, based on her top two performances at the championship meet. The 5-foot-9 senior, broke the only two meet records to tumble on the women’s side, both of them on the final day in the same event.

Branton won gold a set a meet record in the 50-metre breaststroke (30.84), won gold in the 100-metre breaststroke (1.07:64), silver in the 200 metre-breaststroke (2.31:12) and was part of of Western’s bronze medal winning 4×100 medley relay.

“I’m super excited, it really means a lot,” said Branton, who was clocked at 30.34 seconds in the morning preliminaries of the 50-metre breaststroke, erasing the short-course standard of 30.45 set in 2022 by Manitoba’s Kelsey Wog. In the evening finals, swam in an Olympic-sized pool, Branton struck gold in 30.84, which surpassed the 2015 long-course record of 31.11 set by Calgary’s Fiona Doyle.

“I wasn’t really sure how the meet was going to go as I hadn’t had a chance to taper this year (due to illness) and didn’t really have high expectations. I had a kind of tough start in my 100m breast, so I was really happy to make up for that in the 50,” Branton said. “I was going into the meet under the record so I new that I would have to give it my all if I was going to get that in the morning prelims and again in the finals. It was super exciting. But my relay was the most special thing that has ever happened to me at Western and I have never been so proud. We have two rookies on that relay (Leah Butler & Gabriella Casasanta) and both of them were amazing and the girl on the freestyle leg (Danielle Treasure) really killed it,” Branton said on the USports website.