LC Far Westerns Championships

Hey, Team!
This past weekend was what we generally accept to be the longest weekend of the year: summer Far Westerns. It’s a five-day meet, offering every event, and swimmers can compete in up to nine events. We make the drive to the Concord Terrapins’ pool multiples times a day, then bake in the sun (or, on certain unpleasant Sundays, huddle under all our dry towels to stay warm) for hours, waiting around to swim for around a minute. We get on the blocks, the buzzer sounds, and for a few seconds, we push ourselves to our limits. With trials, finals, and relays, some swimmers race well over three thousand yards. And for some reason, we keep going back to the pool. But it all paid off for our swimmers over the span of the meet!
Twelve of our swimmers competed at the meet this weekend: Hannah Bergh, Marissa Bergh, Maria Carlson, Nicole Doi, Stephanie Doi, Chris Dotson, Chris Jhong, Jason Lau, Brent Reed, Kyle Shepodd, Claire Suen, and Natalie Tang. There were a total of 19 best times, including relay lead-off splits. Notable best times include Hannah Bergh’s new Sectional cut in the 50 Freestyle and Chris Dotson’s blazing fast Junior National time in the same event. Congratulations to both, and to all our other swimmers who had best times this weekend!
As far as finals go, Chris Dotson won the 100 Freestyle and took third in the 50. Masters’ swimmer Brent Reed would have been seeded fifth for the 100 Butterfly final if he was eligible to compete in the final heat. Natalie Tang finished eighth in the 1500 Freestyle.
  Just as always, relays were a huge part of the Far Westerns weekend. Jason Lau and Chris Dotson were able to swim official best times as relay lead-offs. Our 11-12 boys stepped up their game to place in all three of their relays: eighth in both the 200 Medley and 400 Freestyle relays and ninth in the 200 Freestyle relay.
As our season closes, times in the Pacific Top 25 become faster and faster. After Far Westerns, we had seven swimmers with a total of 15 times in the Pacific Swimming Top 25. Congratulations Chris Dotson, Chris Jhong, Jason Lau, Tyler Lu, Cole Reznick, Natalie Tang, and Andrew Wang on making it into the Top 25!
So where do we go from here? For most of us, Far Westerns marks the end of the Long Course season. However, Chris Dotson still has an appearance to make at the Junior Nationals meet in Palo Alto, and Natalie Tang will be competing for Pacific Swimming at the Western Zones Championships in Clovis later this month.
Now that we’re coming to the end of the week, we’re reaching our last few practices until we restart in the fall. That means it’s time for two of the best weeks of the year – our end-of-summer break! It’s your time to relax and do all those great things you never get to do because you have school or swim practice. Go ahead and do some of those slightly crazy things you’ve been saving up since the beginning of the season, willing yourself all summer not to do because you don’t want to ruin your championship meets! But get ready for when we start up again, because we’re jumping right back into Short Course swimming with our eyes on the prize: Winter JO’s, Senior Championships, or Sectionals.
Thanks so much for a great summer! Enjoy your break, and I’ll see you all when we get back in the water at the end of the month!

Natalie Tang
Team Captain