Age Group One Meet Summary for January

Michael Chasson

Dual Meet Champs

Congrats to our swimmers who helped us to a second-place finish at Dual Meet Champs! Lots of great teams and swimmers at this meet. It was great seeing you all compete while sticking to your race plans. One of the best takeaways, at a meet like this, I was able to hear from a few of our swimmers is that there is always a reason to finish the race hard. What I heard most from our group was “I wanted to race hard for my teammates!” You can always use that to help yourself. We all hold the power to inspire each other, at practice, in class, at meets, in finals, it doesn’t matter. 

One of the more important things to share was everyone’s ability to be competitive in any event they raced. There are a few races I want to highlight that were not their best events, shout out to these swimmers who stepped up! Rachel and Edward in backstroke events, Leo in butterfly at finals, Mika placed 2nd in breast at finals, Ella in sprint fly and back, and Ander swam fly events. Overall, we upheld the “team over self” mentality so well. Swimming for something bigger is a great way to remove pressure from individual performance. This is something that can be used at bigger meets, and it should be! 

Stand-out performances:

            200 Free - Ashton and Gavin both dropping over 3 seconds

            Blake leading off the 200 Free relay in a best time

            Audrey breaking 30 in her 50 fly & 2-second drop in 100 Fly

            Edward dropping time and scoring in backstroke events - way to step up for the team

            Lillian tan with a 3-second drop in 100 fly and new state cut 

            Leo dropped a best time in the 100 back - putting him within .1 of the state cut

            4-second drop for Luke in the 100 fly

            Rachel 100 Back dropping a second (after a long stretch of stagnation!)

            Ander with a 5-second drop in his 100 fly

Bob Platt Memorial SAC Invite

Overall, a great performance from so much of our group. I was most concerned with the response of racing two weekends in a row, and how we chose to act and respond to the challenge. A fantastic job being ready and enthusiastic!

There were 15 swimmers from our group that competed in back-to-back meet weekends, great job handling that challenge! Great work to Gavin, Ander, Ella, Lillian T, Rachel, Luke, Ashton, Lillian F, Stella D, Edward, and Audrey. Furthermore, there was a smaller group of swimmers that competed in Monday finals and then swam Friday distance at the SAC invite, huge shout out to Blake, Ella, Mikaela, Leo, and Truitt. One of the things I tried to avoid doing was putting swimmers in the same events from Dual Meet Champs to the SAC Invite the following weekend. However, there were a few that did swim repeat events. No practice evidence between these meets would suggest a reason for improvement, other than more attention to race strategy and details, and still, we found a way to improve time through these focuses. 

Meet highlight for each swimmer:

  • Blake's 12-second improvement and the first time under 6:00 in 500
  • Audrey state cut & 5-second drop in 100 Free
  • Edward's 6-second improvement in 200 Free
  • Stella D new state cut in 100 Free
  • Lillian F 5-second drop in 200 Fly with great splitting
  • Ryan dropped her 500 by 10 seconds
  • Mikaela back-to-back weekends of 100 back and set a best time by a second both times
  • Ashton dropped 10 seconds in his 500 Free, putting him 12th in the state
  • Leo dropped a second off his 100 Free getting within a second of a new state cut
  • Stella Olson dropped time in 2 events while dealing with challenges from an injury
  • Luke, across 4 events (2FR, 2BK, 50BK, 1BR) dropped nearly 40-seconds, including a 20-second drop in his 200 Backstroke
  • Rachel went a best time by 7 seconds in the 200 Back
  • Truitt’s 10-second drop in the 1000, putting him within striking range of the state cut
  • Nathan’s progression for the 100 Free - he has swam this event 4 times since November and has dropped from a 1:12 to a 1:05, great discipline
  • Riley has worked through an injury to her first full meet and threw down 4 best times
  • Ella breaking 2:20 in her 200 Free
  • Ander's best time in the 100 Free

Gavin’s 27-second drop in the 500 Free, breaking 6:00 for the firs