Gator Nation

Gator Nation

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

We Are The Champions of the World!. . .Or At Least the Mt. Vernon Region!

The Mt. Vernon Park Gators compete for three trophies every year -- the Division Relays Championship, the Divisional A Meet Championship, and the IM Invitational.  On Monday night, MVP defeated local rivals Mansion House (by six points), Riverside Gardens, Hollin Meadows, and Waynewood to win the Colonial Division (that division consists of the largest teams).

It's really not very special or meaningful to beat those other local teams (don't believe what he just wrote, he's lying!).  There is no real rivalry with these teams (he's lying again).  And no one keeps track of how many times teams have won it  (Waynewood won it twelve years in a row before MVP took it in 2006). 

The Gators have won the Colonial Division three of the last four years.  There was a stretch where Waynewood won it every year, but those days of Dolphin dominance have been replaced by Gator glory.   Overall, the Gators have won it six times.  Riverside Gardens has won it five times, Mansion House once, Hollin Meadows once, and Waynewood has won it 13 times, but not since 2007.

There were a lot of great swims last night, but the 8 & unders are the reason MVP won the meet.  Yes, Cassidy Bayer took first place and set a new meet/team record (congrats!), Holly Jansen swam a lightning fast third, Sara Bertram took 2nd place with an amazing swim, Torie Bolger led a contingent of Gator 13-14 year olds to second, third, fourth, and six place, and Sean Jansen went from seventh seed to third place, but the 8 & unders way overperformed their seeds.

Parker Blondin led the way for the Gators by finishing first in the 8 & under boys despite his sixth seed.  Andrei Zaitsev gained key points by improving from 10th seed to 5th place. 

The 8 & under girls followed the lead of the boys -- Emily Makin was seeded sixth and finished third, Juliana Skopp-Cardillo was seeded 12th and finished 5th, and Olivia Blondin took 6th despite a 9th seed.

The hot streak for the Gators continued with the 9-10 boys.  Sean Jansen took seven seconds off his best time to finish third, jumping four spots.  Nick Dupuis grabbed fifth place after slicing nearly nine and a half seconds off his 13th place seed time.  Cole Miller also took ninth place.

The 11-12 girls rocked the pool -- Cassidy Bayer smashed the Meet (and Team) record by 1.24 seconds, swimming a 1:10.36.  Waynewood's fabulous swimmer, Maxine Clifford, had set the record in 2009 with a 1:12.00.  Holly Jansen took nearly one second off, and took third, while Jessie Bricker earned a sixth place with a 2.56 second drop.

Cassidy's old team record time was 1:12.77, so she knocked an impressive 2.41 seconds off her June mark.

Tristan Colaizzi took off 1.5 seconds in the 13-14 boys IM, earning a seventh place finish.

Despite the aforementioned Maxine Clifford winning the 13-14 girls IM, the Gator girls made it their own personal dance party -- Torie Bolger took second, Emily Walzl finished third, Anna Fracasso got fourth, and Jayne Orleans took sixth.  All four swam in the final heat.

Under the modified Stableford scoring system used in the meet, the 11-12 girls and the 13-14 girls scored an equal amount of points for the team -- highest of any gender/age group. 

The 15-18 girls finished the meet strongly for the Gators -- Sara Bertram beat out Waynewood sensation Reanna Dona for second place.  Sara whacked nearly two seconds off her seed time.  Maddy Bolger took seventh, and Julia Bolger earned ninth, to round out the 19 top ten finishers for the team.

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