Storm Forecast for January 29th, 2026

Why These Last Few Meets Matter

The short course season is a long one…nearly half a year for our littles (that’s 4% of the time a 6&U swimmer has been alive!), considerably longer for a high school girl.  It can be a slog in late January & February, especially when we have no desire to go outside and we’re getting no Vitamin D.  We ALL feel it this time of year.  It makes it really easy to say, “nah, we’ll skip the last few meets and take a break.”  But in the grand scheme of things, the end of season meets generate the momentum that will carry a kid through the sport.  It’s the show that all of the work, all of the hours and calf cramps and early mornings were worth it.  Going through a 10 week fall and 15 week winter without a culminating meet would be like slogging through those last two painfully long Avengers movies back-to-back and never seeing Thanos fall (timely, right?).  It doesn’t matter if your swimmer isn’t close to a state cut, that’s not the sole goal.  The idea is to see the fruits of the labor, the progress.  Seeing a Thunderstorm execute a proper dive and flipturn in their 50 freestyle when they couldn’t do either of those things in September.  Having a Tropical Storm swimmer want to do the hard event they once thought to be impossible.  All of these things only occur when the swimmer goes to that end-of-season meet.  We as coaches will do everything we can to help prepare them for that final encounter of the season, but it’s up to you to get them there.  Please make sure your swimmer gets at least one more meet in this season, no matter how nervous they might be about it.  It’s never as bad as they think it’ll be, and success there will make the next session (and the one after that) that much easier.

February Practice Changes

This is the last week of Thunderstorm & Tropical Storm having the early shift.  Next week they begin their day at 6pm. 

Storm-A-Thon Wrap-Ups

With the exception of swim apparel/bags/swim caps that’ll need customized, just about everything from Storm-A-Thon is in-hand.  We’ve begun handing out everything, with stickers in folders, water bottles at the pools that match with awards bins, goggles and other larger items being hand-delivered to athletes.

The roller skating day won narrowly in family voting (coloring hair was at the bottom of the list—thank you!)—we’ll have a date either in March during our time off, or coinciding with an event in Watertown.

End-of-Season Meets

BCSC Champs (2/7) – This is the final Rising Stars meet of the season.  Held at Elkhorn High School, this is a fantastic one session meet for any of our swimmers without state cuts.  This year, the meet is short course meters (so a slightly longer pool), but it’s a fun time with giant medals and great team spirit.  Signup closes Saturday.

Regional Champs (2/20-2/22) – The final meet of the season for 80% of our swimmers.  Held at McFarland High School, we co-host this beast of a meet and historically swim extremely well at this event.  If your swimmer isn’t going to state, this is the meet you should plan to wrap up the season with.  If your swimmer has *some* state cuts, talk to your coach.  If your swimmer has many state cuts, it’s one to skip.  Session 1 has some Ironman/IMX events; Session 2 and 4 are for 10&U, Session 3&5 are for 11&O.  Signup is OPEN

LSC Championships
Senior (2/27-3/1)
10&U (2/28-3/1)
11-14 (3/6-3/8)
These three meets primarily require an LSC Championship time standard to attend.  If you haven’t found those standards, they can be found here.  Signups are open for all 3.  If you have a swimmer that *hasn’t* qualified but wants to be considered for relays, declare them a yes for the meet and we’ll add them to relay variables.

Sectional Championship

This meet is a little faster than the Senior Champs meet, held this year in Fargo.  So far, it looks like about 7 swimmers are qualified---this is a TOUGH one to make.  Time standards are here.  No swim file yet, but swimmers can declare their intent.

Team Pictures

We’ve tentatively set Tuesday, February 10^th for our team photo day.  We’re doing things a little simpler this year, with swimmers getting individuals, then small group & team photos being done strictly by composite photos.  That way, nobody is sticking around for 90 minutes.  We’ll have more details out soon, but for now—mark Tuesday the 10^th at SP West down for swimmer and coach photos.

Practice Changes & Schedule

Meet Signup & Details

JJ’s Dryland Signup

Use promo code: SWIMFAST25

Sign up for the class here

Instructions on signing up here