Little Hands, Little Feet...Your Gator Swimmers of the Meet!

You've probably heard the cheer as it builds up and repeats from under the MVP Gator tents, "Little hands, little feet; our 8 and unders can't be beat!" It's got all the qualities of a good cheer: catchy rhythm, easy to shout and repeat, and a great positive message. Definitely one of my faves.

If you read the previous blog entry covering the meet against Dunn Loring, you know we had LOTS of fast swims, so there were many great candidates for the coveted title of "Gator Swimmers of the Week." But ultimately, this week two of our youngest Gators had those little hands and little feet flying around at ridiculously fast speeds to win lots of races and deservedly earned the titles: Liam Fore (7) and Helen Milito (8).  Both Liam and Helen won every race they entered and brought home 15 points each for the team.

Liam won the Free by more than a body length, laying down a sub-20 25m Free in 19.87 seconds- nearly 3 seconds ahead of the field- quite an impressive time for a 7 year old, to be sure. Then, Liam "flew" through his second race, the 25m Fly, in 22.34, besting the second place finisher by 0.79 seconds. Finally, Liam was one of four teammates in the 8 & under Free relay which won their race by nearly 20 seconds.

Helen was equally impressive on Saturday, winning the Back and Breast. Dropping a full second off her previous best Backstroke time, Helen pulled out an upset victory beating the top DL swimmer by 0.23 seconds. And in another tight race, she led a trio of Gator girls to a clean sweep of the 8 & under Breast in a time of 28.66. And then later teaming up with those other Gator girls in the 8 & under Free relay to win a tight race 1:35.25 to 1:35.38.

So, this week, there was no question about it "Little hands and little feet... our 8 & unders can't be beat!" Congratulations Helen and Liam!

Go Gators!