Vacaville Competes in first Long Course Meet of Season
The Vacaville Swim Team traveled to Folsom over the past weekend with 70 swimmers representing the team. This was the first long course meet of the season for the vast majority of the team. This was a great learning experience for all the swimmers and a first great step to building up for the long course season and competing at the Junior Olympics in July!
For the Red, White and Blue groups, Coach Sarah was very excited with how the swimmers raced throughout the meet. She was very excited with several swimmers making new Junior Olympic cuts for this summer and how the kids all kicked hard during their races. She is very excited to see the progression of the swimmers over the course of the summer with all their hard work on the fundamentals and technique.
For the swimmers from the Gold and Junior 2 groups that attended the meet at Folsom, Coach Grace felt they all did exceptional! Coach Grace was very pleased with how well they swam for the first long course meet of the season. All the swimmers that had attended took time off in several or all their events. With that being said many of my swimmers also made one or several Junior Olympic cuts for long course. Overall Coach Grace was excited to see the swimmers race and see how well they did.
Across the board, every one of the Senior II swimmers that swam at the Spring Splash over the weekend earned some best times. It was great to see some of our swimmers who have consistently attended meets improve and try new events and also some swimmers who have attended few if any meets compete. Leah Johnson, Madison Salsgiver, Marijke Nothaft, Jen Cattaneo, Brittney Knight, and Will Jones all challenged themselves to a 200 non-free stroke long course. Gabe Ernie dropped an impressive amount of time in each of his swims from last year’s times. Madison earned BB times in her 50 and 100 free. Gabbi Arca scored her first B time in the 15-16 age group in the 50 free. Coach Jared was very pleased with all the swims over the weekend and looks forward to seeing more attendance from the Senior 2 group at the meets this summer!
The Senior 1 and Junior 1 Groups had a great first long course meet! Coach Wedaman states that they have been practicing kicking fast for the entire race and having three dolphin kicks off each wall and their times reflected this improvement. Congratulation to all the swimmers and a special way to go to the following swimmers who made Far Western Q times; Melissa Mullis in 13-14 200 Backstroke, Boyd Abernethy in 11-12 50 and 100 Butterfly and Megan Flynn 11-12 in the 50, 100, 200 and 400 Freestyle. Megan’s 50 Freestyle also tied the team record.
The National group also stepped up and swam well over the weekend. One of the major focuses of the group was to work on negative splitting their races (making the second half faster than the first half of the race). The group did a good job of applying this strategy and saw the benefit with numerous best times. The group also continues to work on its race ‘attitude’ finishing every race as if it is there last.
The staff and swimmers would also like to thank all those parents who stepped forward to help officiate and time throughout the weekend! Your help is greatly appreciated!
