PNS Champs: 12&Unders

Jay Pearson

PNS Champs (12&Under)

What an exciting meet! Our first big finals meet in two years and our first meet with parents able to be spectators since February 2020. There were almost 30 teams at the meet and Wave finished 7th!

For many of the swimmers, it was their first big champs meet at KCAC in Federal Way, and the first three-day meet for most of the 11-12 swimmers, who had Prelims and Finals all three days. The most exciting part, however, was the return of relays! All but one of Wave’s relay teams placed in the Top 16!

One of the most challenging factors was the lack of the diving well for warmup/warmdown, which meant several stoppages so the swimmers could use the cold competition pools to recover and prepare, but they were up to the challenge and succeeded. On Saturday and Sunday, the two competition pools were divided into Odd heats at one end and Even heats at the other end, so swimmers had to be on top of their game to get to the right starting block on time! 

We had two Top 3 swims: Lasya Viswanadham and Kyle Fontelera!! Congrats!! For all our Top 8 finishes, scroll down.

Many thanks to all the parents who drove and especially to those who volunteered as timers. Those were some long days!!

Age Group Select

Our 11-yr-olds were among the youngest in the age group, and so it was very difficult to make finals with so many teams. Our 10&Unders proved to be one of the strongest groups in the meet, with several Top 16 swims. It was wonderful to see all the athletes be fantastic teammates and cheer each other on. Special thanks go to Mark and Ella for being Coach Jay’s assistant coaches for the 10&Under sessions. Mark even gave the pep talk before the last relay! Our Medley Relay (Kailyn, Lasya, Kamilla, and Kiara) placed 6th and our Free Relay (Kamilla, Kiara, Nora, and Lasya) finished 8th!

  • Lasya Viswanadham was one of our two biggest stars of the weekend, with Top 4 finishes and new best times in the 50 and 100 breast
  • Alex Lobdell was our other big star, as he earned not one, but three new A Times (his first ever) and went 6-for-6 in best times! He also broke the 1:10 barrier in his 100 free by not breathing on the final 5 yards, beating every other swimmer in his heat by doing so! He did the same thing in his 200 free, breaking the 3:00 barrier and shaving off 10 seconds!
  • Olivia DeAmicis was our only 11-yr-old to make finals, dropping two seconds and earning a BB time in the 100 fly, as well as big drops in her 100 IM and 100 back. She also just missed breaking the :30 barrier in the 50 free
  • Vien Pogue had several good swims, highlighted by 5-second drops in her 100 IM, 200 IM, and 100 breast. She also earned a B time in the 100 IM and cut off several seconds in her 50 fly and 200 breast
  • Tommy Henderson had best times in the 50 breast, 50 back, 100 free, and the 100 IM (5 seconds!) just two weeks after turning 11!
  • Ella Tulanon dropped 2 seconds in her 200 back in a perfectly paced race and paced her 500 free just as perfectly
  • Lauren Hizzey cut 5 seconds off her 200 back, sprinting her way to a fantastic finish, and also executed fantastic race strategy in her 100 back to drop 3 more seconds and earn a BB time
  • Amelia Pletosu built her 100 fly beautifully, knocking off 6 seconds to break the 1:20 barrier and earn a new B time, as well as a big drop in her 50 fly
  • Mark Lukiyanov had one of the biggest time drops of the meet, with a 12-second improvement in the 100 fly, as well an excellent 100 back and a nice drop in his 50 free
  • Sophia Gorveatt has been working hard on her stroke count for the past month and it showed in her second-ever 500 free and a best time in her 50 free
  • Shir Netz swam right on her best times in all her events, including a big drop in her 50 free
  • Kailyn Wing had several best times, including big drops in both the 50 and 100 breast. Her best swim, however, was leading off the 200 Medley Relay with a one-second drop in her 50 back and jumping out to a huge lead in our heat, which we never lost!
  • Nora Herman earned her first-ever A time in the 100 fly, cutting more than 4 seconds off her best time! She swam nearly as well in her 50 fly for another best time. On her 100 free, she used superior race strategy to move from 8th place at the end of the first 50 to finish in 3rd, blowing past 5 other swimmers!
  • Kamilla Bugaitsova swam a perfect 200 free, including not breathing the final 5 yards to slip past two other swimmers and get a best time. She was also a key member of both relay teams
  • Kiara Keim was the team cheer captain and had an outstanding 100 IM while her free leg in our medley relay led us to victory in our heat
  • Navya Sainani used great pacing to cut 3 seconds off her 100 breast time

White

The White Group only had two swimmers qualify, but they sure made their presence felt with excellent swims and great cheers!

  • Yuzuki Ishizuka had a fanatastic first-ever champs meet highlighted by a 3-second drop in her 100 IM
  • Bimu Beibit dropped more total time than any other Wave swimmer, including 15 seconds in his 100 free, 4 seconds in his 100 fly and 8 seconds in his 100 IM (which was also a new BB time)

Purple

On Friday, we had four swimmers show up bright and early for some impressive swims and an amazing way to start off the weekend:

  • Indio Balog dropped an amazing 13 seconds in his 100 back, showing some fast tempo and great splits!
  • Oleg Arlouski swam a whopping three events and performed well in all of them
  • Bennett Geitz dropped 3.3 seconds in his 50 free for an end time of 31.06!
  • Adrian Juco dropped 3 seconds in his 100 breast at Prelims, then came back at Finals to drop another ~2 seconds! Woohoo!

On Saturday, despite not being able to use the warmup pool, our swimmers did a fantastic job:

  • Gahl Ami ad swam the 50 fly, 100 free, and 200 IM, dropping 7 seconds in his last event!
  • Indio dropped 2 seconds in his 50 fly and had a nice swim in the 50 back
  • Adrian dropped a bit of time in his 50 fly and dropped 4 seconds in his 200 IM, leading his heat most of the way
  • Oliver Wang dropped some time in his 50 fly, had a great backstroke start in his 50 back, and—despite getting DQ’d in his 200 IM—had a really great race
  • Oleg inched closer to his A Time in the 50 fly and had a great first half of his 100 free
  • Maddy Cheng dropped 2 seconds in her 200 breast and swam very intelligently in her 200 IM with great tempo and use of underwaters
  • Bennett dropped more than 1 second in his 50 back and performed an amazing start, and also competed well in his 100 free

On Sunday, we continued our string of fantastic swims:

  • Oleg competed in WAVE’s B Relay for the 4x100 free: an incredible accomplishment. He also swam butterfly, dropping almost 2 seconds and getting closer to that A Time!
  • Cassy Nguyen swam the 50 breast, dropping 3 seconds and showing an impressively fast tempo, as well as the 100 IM, dropping a total of 6 seconds and showing mastery in all four strokes- what amazing swims!
  • Oliver swam in the 50 breaststroke and started the race with a body-length lead after his amazing pullout while in the 100 IM he had an amazing butterfly breakout and great backstroke tempo that led to a 3 second drop
  • Bennett returned to swim the 50 breast, dropping half a second and crushing both pullouts, and the 200 freestyle, dropping 2 seconds with his great pacing
  • Adrian swam the 50 breast and dropped 4 seconds, just inches away from an A Time, and the 100 IM, dropping another 4 seconds with great splits
  • Gahl swam the 200 back, dropping a few milliseconds in his race, the 200 freestyle, dropping almost a second, and the 100 IM, pulling out an amazingly fast backstroke tempo—what a long day!
  • Indio swam the 200 freestyle and dropped a whopping 5 seconds due to his strong first and last 50s, as well as the 100 IM in which he dropped 4 seconds and crushed the others in his heat on the last 25
  • For Finals, we had two swimmers—Adrian and Oleg—return to swim their best events. We had a lot of fun and fixed some minute details from the morning! All in all, what fantastic swims!

Senior Prep

We had a fantastic 11-12 PNS Championship Meet, there were 136 successful swims with an average time drop of 0.55, we also had another 14 swims that were between a 0.01 and 0.50 second off their best. There were lots of learning opportunities, especially around Odd/Even heats on separate ends of the pool, finals and that process, swim offs, and how important warm down is when you are swimming that many races in a weekend.

Shout outs go to:

  • Kyle Fontelera for getting the highest place in the group (3rd place in the 50 fly)
  • Ron Levin for Senior Prep’s biggest drop of the meet in his 200 IM
  • Rahul Purkayastha for the best swim off in the whole meet. Wow that was a fun race, and I loved how our team was behind the blocks cheering Rahul on to victory!
  • Cora Ledrick, Lena Duryee, Kyle, and Joshua Tang who made finals in all six of their individual events! Impressive!

Biggest Time Drops:

  • Ron dropped 8.57 seconds in the 200 IM
  • Cora dropped 6.82 seconds in the 200 breast and 3.53 seconds in the 200 free
  • Deming Gates dropped 6.22 seconds in the 200 Breast and 5.09 seconds in the 200 Free
  • Daniel Chen dropped 6.12 seconds in the 100 Fly
  • Bailey Tang dropped 5.75 seconds in the 200 Breast and 5.4 seconds in the 200 IM
  • Lena dropped 4.24 seconds in the 200 Back
  • Joshua dropped 3.73 seconds in the 100 Breast and 3.66 seconds in the 200 IM
  • Barun Acharya dropped 3.72 seconds in the 100 IM

Top Total Points Scored at Champs

  • Lena 62 points
  • Kyle 60 points
  • Cora 37 points
  • Joshua 35 points
  • Ani 35 points
  • Daniel Xia 31 points
  • Barun 25 points
  • Anton Mazepa 8 points

Top 8 Finishes

  • Barun Acharya – 6th in 50 breast, 7th in 100 breast
  • Lena Duryee – 4th in 500 free, 6th in 50 back & 50 free
  • Kyle Fontelera – 3rd in 50 fly, 8th in 100 fly, 100 free & 100 IM
  • Cora Ledrick – 5th in 100 free, 6th in 200 free
  • Ani Purkayastha – 5th in 200 back, 7th in 100 back
  • Joshua Tang – 8th in 100 breast
  • Lasya Viswanadham – 3rd in 100 breast, 4th in 50 breast
  • Daniel Xia – 8th in 50 breast, 50 free
  • 10&U Girls – 6th in 200 medley relay (Kailyn Wing, Lasya, Kamilla Bugaitsova, Kiara Keim), 8th in 200 free relay (Kamilla, Kiara, Nora Herman, Lasya)
  • 11-12 Girls – 7th in 200 medley relay (Ani, Zoe Piepkorn, Lena, Cora), 7th in 400 free relay (Zoe, Lena, Ani, Cora), 8th in 200 free relay (Lena, Ani, Zoe, Cora)
  • 11-12 Boys – 6th in 200 free relay (Daniel, Barun, Thomas Claux, Kyle), 6th in 400 free relay (Daniel, Barun, Thomas Claux, Kyle), 6th in 400 medley relay (Anton Mazepa, Barun, Kyle, Daniel)

New US Motivational Times

AA

  • Lena Duryee – 50 & 100 back
  • Kyle Fontelera – 100 free
  • Cora Ledrick – 50, 100 & 200 free
  • Lasya Viswanadham – 50 breast
  • Daniel Xia – 50 free

A

  • Barun Acharya – 100 breast
  • Thomas Claux – 50 free
  • Deming Gates – 200 free
  • Nora Herman – 100 fly
  • Cora Ledrick – 100 & 200 breast
  • Alex Lobdell – 50 & 100 back, 50 free
  • Ani Purkayastha – 50 free
  • Joshua Tang – 100 & 200 breast
  • Daniel Xia – 50 breast

BB

  • Bimu Beibit – 100 IM
  • Daniel Chen – 100 fly, 50 breast
  • Olivia DeAmicis – 100 fly
  • Deming Gates – 50 breast
  • Lauren Hizzey – 100 back
  • Adrian Juco – 100 & 200 IM, 50 breast
  • Ron Levin – 50 free
  • Cassy Nguyen – 50 breast
  • Bailey Tang – 50 & 100 breast

B

  • Indio Balog – 100 back
  • Bimu Beibit – 100 free
  • Bennett Geitz – 50 free, 50 back
  • Cassy Nguyen – 100 IM
  • Amelia Pletosu – 100 fly
  • Vien Pogue – 100 IM

Way to go Wave Swimmers!