The Vashon Island Stingrays, a newly formed swim club, are already seeing success at regional competitions, with one of the team’s swimmers competing in a prestigious invitation-only meet this month.

The club, which has 30 members in third to 12th grades, was created this year to accommodate athletes with busy schedules due to participation in dance or other extracurricular activities, said parent Karrie Hernandez. The team practices in the Vashon Athletic Club pool under the supervision of coaches Dayna Rogers and Scott Bonney, and swimmers compete in races as short as 25 meters and as long as 1600 meters.

“The club was formed at the insistence of the swimmers, who are taking pride in their successes since recently starting to compete in swimming competitions,” Hernandez said.

Two weeks ago, Stingray Paulina Hernandez swam in the 2009 Pacific Coast Invitational meet. She swam her 800-meter freestyle in 12:40, swam the 100-meter freestyle in 1:15, completed the 100-meter butterfly in 1:33 and finished her 200 freestyle with a time of 2:47.

“Paulina is thinking ahead to her future in swimming and plans to aggressively pursue her God-given talent,” Hernandez said. Her daughter hopes to go to college on a swimming scholarship, she added.