Rocktober Meet Recap

Jay Pearson

Rocktober Special Meet Recap

Wave swimmers dropped time in ridiculous amounts in our first full meet of the new season, led by Claire Gao’s team record in the 10&Under 50 Free as well as Alex Wang and Owen Jones each making Wave’s Top 16 for 8&Under Boys in the 50 Back and 50 breast respectively (they both made #7!). To top it off, Prisha Parikh captured a Grand Slam by earning four new A times…one in each stroke! According to Coach Erin, this rare feat was the first such Grand Slam this millennium by a Wave swimmer!

The high number of best times included 20 drops of 30+ seconds (led by Mutian Gao’s 49.56-second drop in the 500 Free!), 35 drops of 20-29 seconds, and 154 more drops of 10+ seconds! Several athletes earned first-time BB or A times, which qualified them for the AGI meet in November or PNS Champs in December. We also saw a boatload of first-time swims in almost every workout group. Congratulations Wave Swimmers on a fantastic meet!!

Senior 1

We had five swimmers jam out at the Rocktober Meet this past weekend. Everyone who competed performed incredibly well. We have really turned up the intensity in practices the past couple of weeks and it was wonderful to see all the hard work the swimmers have been putting in pay off. All of them took on the 500 free and we saw some huge drops across the board in the event. Looking forward to the rest of the season and seeing what everyone can accomplish.

Highlights

Aarohi Gandhi absolutely crushed it at this meet, dropping time in five of her seven races and finishing in the top 8 in all of them. Her favorite race of the meet was her 100 Fly where she dropped and put herself closer to breaking 1:10 in the event. Her biggest drop came in the 500 Free where she improved her best time by 37 seconds.
Rashmi Joshi had a fantastic meet as well with time drops across the board. Her best race for the meet was the 100 Fly where she dropped 6 seconds. She has been getting stronger and stronger and it is really showing in her racing.
Aditi Kandiah has been working incredibly hard in practice and it is really starting to show in her racing. Her biggest drop came in the 500 Free where she beat her previous best by 12 seconds. It is awesome to see all the hard work she has been doing pay off.
Neha Phatak is another swimmer who saw amazing success across the board, dropping in several of her races. She fancies herself a mid-distance freestyle swimmer and that really showed in her 500 Free where she dropped 16 seconds on her way to a 3^rd place finish.
Neil Rawal saw amazing time drops in six of his seven races, and the only race he didn’t drop in he was right on his best time. He turned in monster swims in the 200 Free and 200 Back, dropping 10 seconds in both events. He is hungry to continue to improve and keep dropping time in his races moving forward.

Black Group

Black Group had tons of great swims this past weekend at the Rocktober Invitational. Too many to mention here, but I’ll do the best run down that I can. Special shout outs to Alex Wang and Owen Jones for making Wave’s Top 16 in the 50 Back and 50 Breast, respectively. Both swims earned the boys their first-ever B times!

There were 73 athletes from Black Group entered into the meet, resulting in lots of energy on the pool deck from the kids! There were a few missed races, but only a few. The kids did a very good job on Sunday of tracking the heats, checking in with the timers, and stepping forward for their 50s.

Thank you to all our officials and volunteers who helped make this meet happen!

We had lots of DQs in some races, but the coaches can see the kids making progress in those strokes, so we feel confident they’ll put it all together down the road. At the same time, we had SO many first-time swims successfully (legally) completed over the weekend:

Navya Arora—50 Breast, 25 Fly
Aman Bhatt—100 IM
Rose Boyle—50 Back, 50 Free, 25 Back, 25 Fly
Quinn Braun—25 Breast
Tony Chen—25 Breast
Yushi Chong—50 Breast, 25 Fly
Hayley Chou—50 Back, 50 Breast, 50 Free, 25 Free
Timur Dauletbaev—50 Breast, 25 Fly
Ann Ding—50 back, 50 Free
Raihan Echevarria—50 Back, 50 Free, 25 Fly, 25 Free
Kaito Falk—50 Breast
Ella Gao—50 Fly, 100 IM
Jason Gao—50 Back, 50 Free, 25 Free
David Govsheev—50 Breast
Viyan Gupta—50 Back, 50 Free
Zoey Harmetz—25 Fly
Roohi Indurkar—50 Free, 25 Free
Ira Joshi—25 Free
Clinton Jussel—50 Back, 50 Free
Aarush Kakkar—50 Breast, 25 Breast
Vladislav Kalyuzhin—50 Back, 50 Free, 25 Fly
Abhay Kasavajhala—50 Back, 50 Breast, 50 Free, 25 Back
Perrie Lam—50 Back, 50 Free
Jinhan Li—50 Back, 50 Free
Miya Ma—50 Back, 50 Breast, 50 Free
Anna Makovski—50 Breast, 50 Free
Gemma Moore—50 Back, 50 Free, 25 Free
Beatrix Pressman—50 Breast, 50 Free, 25 Free
Dan Sun—50 Back, 50 Breast, 50 Free, 25 Free
Max Sun—50 Back
William Toole—50 Back, 50 Free, 25 Fly
Margaret Ursulenko—50 Free
Aleksei Volkov—50 Back, 50 Breast, 50 Free
Finley Wiegand—50 Back, 50 Breast, 50 Free, 25 Breast, 25 Fly
Owen Wilson—50 Back, 50 Breast, 50 free, 25 Free
Lucas Xu—50 Breast, 50 Free
Avani Yadav—25 Fly
Aaron Yang—50 Back, 50 Free
Aiden Ye—25 Back, 25 Free
Amelia Ye—25 Breast
Maggie Zhou—50 Back, 50 Free, 25 Fly

A few other swims that were pretty exciting to see because the athletes looked so much better or raced really well in these:

Aman Bhatt—50 Free
Sebastian Chan—100 IM
Yushi Chong—50 Back
Raihan Echevarria—50 Back
Ella Gao—25 Back
Blakely Hansen—50 Breast
Raya Hari—50 Back
Olivia Horng—50 Breast
Elaina Jiang—50 Free
Haim Jung—50 Back
Ruzgar Koc—50 Free
Lingyi Li—25 Breast
Rinat Maksyutov—50 Fly
Ethan Pan—50 Fly
Xander Ritscher Osorio—50 Breast
Ata Sakin—25 Free
Clara Stevenson—100 IM
Alessandra Watrous—25 Fly
Natalie Whitbeck—50 Fly
Avani Yadav—50 Back
Kenshin Yokoyama—25 Back

Congrats to ALL the athletes in Black Group. There were many good swims beyond what I mentioned above, and the coaches can see the kids’ skills growing and things clicking for them!

White Group

This weekend was a huge success for the 67 White Groupers in the Rocktober Special. We swam 15,600 yards (nearly 9 miles!) in 315 events, dropping 1300 seconds off our last best times. That includes a staggering 127 first legal times and 185 personal best times. Of those, 85% of swims dropped time..lots of time! An extra helping of kudos to some exceptional swimmers:

FIRST MEETERS: braved their first official swim meet ever, no sweat.

Abby Ranson
Nico Palfreyman
Nika Svirydovich, who landed 6/6 swims legally, including her first three B times!

MOTIVATIONAL GRADS: first ever B or BB times

First BB:

Adam Kantor (100 Breast) - in his last meet as a 10&u!
Harper McDonald (50 Free) - she still thinks soccer is her sport!

First B:

Rayona Saraswat (100 Free) - in her last meet as a 10&U!
Ilia Maksimchuk (100 Free, 50 Back) - and now he’s only 1.4s from a BB in his 50 Back!
Nika Svirydovich (100 Back, 100 Breast, 50 Back) in her first meet!
Mila Paulus (100 Breast, 50 Breast) - in her last meet as a 10&U! And she earned it.
Alina Karptsova (100 Breast) - in her last meet as a 10& U!
Jayan Upadhaya (50 Back) - he pulled out a stroke he’s never done in practice!
Elise Kabaci (100 IM) - she’s on fire!
Lucas Deng (50 Back) - what did this guy have for breakfast? Something very high-octane!

EPIC EVENT CLUB: the first inductees to the Epic Event Club. They chose the challenge!

500 Free: Anu Bathe, Andy Nguyen, Rachel Siu, Apolline Abram-Profeta, and Jayden Hor. Rachel swam the 500 on Saturday before braving her first 50 Free on Sunday. Andy still doesn’t have a 50 Free time!
400 IM: Keshav Iyer - the only one skilled enough and brave enough to DQ a 400 IM. He was two small DQs away from setting the team record for 10&U 400 IM!

LOSS LEADERS: swimmers who dropped the most time

Cut 40s+: Reagan Edwards (-48s) and Jonathan Liu (-45.5s)
Cut 50s+: Ben Ovendale (-50s)
Cut 60s+: Joshua Hunter (-62s in 6 events)
Cut 70s+: Andrew Ouyang (-72s in 7 events)
Cut 80s+: Elise Kabaci (-87s in 6 events)
Losingest Winners: Lucas Deng (-106s in 6 events) and Serena Zhang (-98s in 5 events!)

FREE-FALLERS: the steepest improvements in the meet for White Group

Rhea Dawani - 7.5s off 50 Back in three weeks- the steepest drop
Jared Wen - 7s off 50 Free in three weeks
Aanya Sharan -32s off 50 Back, 50 Breast and 50 Free in 1.5 months

ONES TO WATCH: these swimmers narrowly missed big motivational firsts this meet - they are often the most driven in the group!

Keshav Iyer: 50 Fly (0.4s from a B) and 50 Back (0.3s from a B)
Apolline Abram-Profeta: 50 Back (0.37s from a B) and 50 Free (0.52s from a B)
Andrew Zu: 50 Breast (0.7s from a B)
Joshua Hunter: 50 Breast (0.9s from a B)

Purple Group

Purple Group had a strong overall performance at our Rocktober meet! The coaches saw many mighty impressive swims as well as some great time drops!! Check out some of these Purple Group highlights!

Sanvi Chaudhary dropped more than 21 seconds in 200 Free!
Evan Deng dropped more than 32 seconds in 100 Back and more than 27 seconds in 100 Free!
Shayan Gavandi dropped more than 15 seconds in 200 Free!
Dario Giuliani dropped more than 20 seconds in 200 Free!
Aiden Honjaya dropped more than 16 seconds in 100 Breast!
Arnav Jha dropped more than 13 seconds in 200 Back!
Anna Kosseff dropped more than 21 seconds in 100 Back!
Kaylan Li dropped more than 14 seconds in 100 Breast!
Karina Maksyutov dropped more than 12 seconds in 100 Breast!
Ethan Marnadi dropped more than 20 seconds in 100 Breast!
Jasmine Shi dropped more than 17 seconds in 200 IM!
Kayson Taylor dropped more than 12 seconds in 100 Breast!
Carlo Villanueva dropped more than 11 seconds in 100 Back!
Senul Wickramaratna dropped more than 23 seconds in 100 Free
Piper Wiegand dropped more than 23 seconds in 100 Back and more than 24 seconds in 100 Breast!
Ishansh Yadava dropped more than 24 seconds in 100 Back!
Landon Yuan dropped more than 30 seconds in 100 Back!

Overall, a lot of great swims and time drops small to major! Great job to all the Purple Group swimmers who attended this meet!

Age Group Select

Besides Claire Gao’s new team record in her final meet as a 10&U and Prisha Parikh’s Grand Slam of A times, we were also led by Beata Sobol earning her first A time and a trip to PNS Champs as well as Fiona Herman and Lucy Broyles earning their first BB times and thus qualifying for the November AGI meet! On the boys’ side, Arjun Bhate won the Ironman Award, earning best times in all seven events, including swimming the 500 Free, 200 Back, and 200 Breast for the first time, while Isshin Yokoyama won every single event he swam (that’s six blue ribbons!)

Check out these other highlights from AGS!

Alex Arlouski picked up a BB time and 2^nd place finish in the 100 Breast by dropping 10.47 seconds!
Ahana Bhattacharya had five best times, four of which were new BB times!
Deniz Cankaya blasted his way to a 2^nd place finish in the 100 Free by dropping 18.92 seconds to break the 1:20 barrier!
Ellen Feng earned a new AA time to earn 16^th place on Wave’s Top 16 all-time!
Rihit Gandhi earned new B times in both of his breaststroke events!
Abby Gray smashed 15.22 seconds off her 200 Free time, garnering a new BB time along the way!
Olivia Henaire picked up new BB times in everything she swam, including 20+ second drops in the 200 IM and 200 Free!
Ryder Hsu earned three new B times in just his second US swim meet, including breaking the 3:00 barrier in the 200 Free!
Sawyer Hsu picked up five new best times, including two new B times
Yuzuki Ishizuka claimed four B times in her first full meet as an 11-yr-old, including a mind-blowing 12.35-second drop in the 200 Free to earn 3^rd place!
Dami Jung added four more BB times to her collection, highlighted by a 1^st place finish in the 50 Breast and an 18.58-second drop in the 200 Free!
Arvin Kandiah dropped a staggering 39.97 seconds in his 200 Free to go along with a new B time in his 100 Back!
Yihan Li chopped off 13.2 seconds in her 200 Free, just missing the 3:00 barrier by less than 1 second!
Olivia Liu swam like a woman possessed, gaining best times every time she dove in, including a 17.12-second drop in the 200 IM and a 20.47-second drop in the 200 Free!
Eleanor Lopez didn’t just earn best times, she smashed every single swim by huge amounts, including -13.26 in the 100 Free, -15.06 in the 100 Back, and a jaw-dropping -36.93 in the 200 Free!
Lainey Meyer had a huge meet, including drops of -10.88 in the 200 Free and -18.45 in the 200 IM!
Kumail Mukadam had one of the best meets of his life, missing a 6^th best time in his last race by less than 1 second! His biggest drop was the 200 IM, where he cut off 11.74 seconds!
Irene Qu had three best time drops of more than 10 seconds: -24.85 in the 200 IM, -10.24 in the 50 Back, and -25.53 in the 200 Free!
Rachael Rose continued her assault on her personal record book with six more best times, including cutting off 16.01 seconds in her 100 Back and a hot 37.22 seconds in her 200 Free!
Sanvi Shrivastava swam her first-ever 200 Back, garnering a 5^th place finish!
Max Stevenson went a perfect 6-for-6, topped off by a 15.25-second drop in the 200 Free!
Vedah Tuladhar picked up four new US motivational times, led by a 13.45-second drop in the 100 Back!
George Ursulenko rocketed his way to victory in two events, including a massive 30.99-second drop in the 200 IM! He also picked up two 2^nd places, including a huge 21.53-second drop in the 200 Free!
Alison Wang added five more new US motivational times to her collection, including a 16.91-second drop in her 100 Breast to pick up 5^th place!
Audra Whitbeck had five personal bests, highlighted by a 5.49-second drop in the 100 Fly to earn her second-ever BB time!
Andy Yang missed a perfect 6/6 by only 0.19 second! He swam his first-ever 200 Breast to win 3^rd place just two days after turning 11!
Ally Yuan swam a perfect meet with six best times—four of which were new BB times—and topped it off by dropping 12.06 seconds in her 200 Free!
Kyra Yuan was flawless in her 50 Breast, chopping off 3.29 seconds to earn a new B time to go along with a B time in her first-ever 200 Breast!
Grace Zhang capped things off for AGS by going 6-for-6, highlighted by a 2^nd place finish in the 50 Breast and a 13.24-second drop in the 200 Free!

High School

So many great swims! So many of you had the best meet you’ve had in a long time! Some of you swam events for the first time and did fantastic! You can’t cheat the grind and it shows. We’ve been working extra hard lately, and all your efforts have shown through on this meet. So many of you had personal bests! Keep it up! Enjoy these highlights!

Arnav Agnihotri: No time drops but fantastic swims for not being in practice for a while!
Ori Ami Ad: -3.06 in 200 Back.
Tanvi Bathe: -2.54 in 100 Back. -1.19 in 100 Free. -17.50 in 200 Back!!! Wow! -9.92 in 200 Free. Swam the 400 IM for the first time and had a fantastic race!
Lucas Blat-Phillips: Swam the 200 Back and 200 Breast for the first time and did fantastic! Great racing! -2.15 in 200 IM. -20.87 in the 500 Free, way to go!!
Zander Brumfield: -1.21 in 200 Back. -2.86 in 500 Free.
Irina Burac: Swam the 200 Fly for the first time and did great! -1.01 in 100 Breast.
Cayden Chan: Swam the 200 Fly and 400 IM for the first time and went beast mode, winning both of those heats by a long shot. -3.82 in 100 Free. Almost broke the minute! You’ll get it next time! -7.64 in 200 Breast. -11.77 in 200 Free.
Ian Chow: Swam 100 Fly for the first time!! -1.81 in 100 Breast. -1.47 in 100 Free. -15.06 in 200 Back!!! -13.62 200 Free. -17.48 in 200 IM. -40.14 in 500 Free.
Evan Galuska: -9.59 in 200 Breast. -13.64 in 200 Fly. -11.29 in 200 Free. -1.98 500 Free.
Mutian Gao: -1.66 in 100 Fly. -37.16 in 200 Back. -4.31 in 200 IM. -49.56 in 500 Free.
Margot Kleinpeter: Swam 500 Free for the first time ever!! Great race. -3.21 in 100 Free. -7.74 in 200 Back. -7.74 in 200 Back. -6.29 in 200 Free.
Chloe Lewis: Swam 500 Free for the first time!! Great Race. -1.20 in 100 Back. -0.46 in 100 Free. -4.07 in 200 Free. -8.59 in 200 IM.
Daniel Luckowski: Had a great first 500 race! -7.63 in 100 Breast. -29.62 in 200 Back. -11.91 in 200 Free. Great meet!
Joshua Myles: First time swimming 200 Free and 100 Back! Great job. -4.90 in 100 Free.
Maya O’Neill: No time drops but all great and solid swims!!
Ishana Pathak: Had a solid first 200 Fly swim! Great job. -2.42 100 Back. -4.71 200 Breast. -37.43 in 500 Free.
Aayona Pattanaik: -3.37 in 100 Fly. -0.98 in 200 Free. -4.54 in 500 Free.
Anish Rakesh Kathiresan: Swam 100 Back and 100 Free for the first time! Great swims!
Will Rinehart: -0.47 in 100 Free. -27.26 in 200 Free.
Will Rose: -5.95 in 100 Back. Swam the 200 Back for the first time. Great swims!
Ron Saveliev: -6.03 in 100 Back. -0.91 in 100 Fly. -17.73 200 Breast. -0.52 200 IM. First time swimming 200 Back. Great solid swim.
Kamilla Shapiro: -8.53 200 Free. -35.83 in 500 Free.
Maya Skakun: First time swimming the 500 Free and had a solid swim, great job!
Paolo Villanueva: -5.77 100 Breast!! -3.28 100 free. -7.66 200 Breast for a B time! -5.46 200 Free. -2.34 in 200 IM. -8.47 in 400 IM.
Oliver Wang: -5.62 in 100 Breast. -2.96 in 100 Fly. -36.92 in 200 Fly!!!! -4.98 in 200 Free for a B time! First time swimming the 400 IM and did fantastic!!! Came out with a huge smile on his face.
Samuel Yi: -3.04 in 200 Back. -0.07 in 200 IM.
Sarah Yi: -0.33 in 100 Free. -8.66 in 200 Breast. -1.44 in 200 free. -3.23 in 200 IM. Starting the season off right with some time drops! Keep up the hard work!!
Leo Zhu: -0.14 in 100 Back. -1.05 in 100 Free for a 55.96!! Congrats, let’s keep up the good work so we can get sub 55 by the end of the year! -0.95 in 200 Back. -3.26 in 200 IM. -27.12 in 500 Free.