Gators Storm To Victory In Away Meet At MVP

The MVP Gators were fantastic in Sunday's A Meet, beating the Fox Mill Woods Fintastics by a 272-147 score.  The meet was supposed to be at Fox Mill Woods on Saturday morning, but in a first for my many years in the NVSL, the meet had to be postponed till Sunday because of the storms.

Fox Mill Woods was still without power at their pool, so, after exchanging texts, phone calls, and smoke signals with Mrs. Gator Team Rep, they agreed to get the meet going and come to MVP on Sunday morning.  Everyone worked extra hard to put the meet on -- particularly Karen Stein, who had to reach swim families to confirm they were around to swim Sunday morning.

As of this morning (July 4th!), only 23 of the 51 A Meets have taken place in the NVSL.  We may have been the only Sunday morning meet.  Only 12 meets ocurred as scheduled on Saturday morning after the storm. 

The Gators led 54-36 after freestyle, and did not look back after that.  The lead more than doubled during backstroke to a 109-71 margin (thus, back was a 55-35 Gator win).  MVP breaststrokers won 59-31, widening the lead to 168-102.  Stat Boy stopped keeping score during butterfly, and was relieved, for sportsmanship reasons, when the Fintastics won their first relay.

Of course, for journalistic reasons, Stat Boy went back and scored fly, which put the Gators up 222-137 -- so fly was a 54-35 win (one point was not awarded because four of the six swimmers DQ'd, thus no third place).

The relays also were not close, as MVP reeled off four straight wins before dropping a race.  Overall, the Gators won 10 of 12 relays -- the most I can ever recall.  The girls went a perfect six for six, while the boys went a pretty darn good four for six, including two team records!  (See related articles).  In addition, Cameron Morey set a Gator backstroke record (see related articles).

There were five Gator sweeps overall.  The first one came when Mollie Passacantando, Jessie Bricker, and Torie Bolger went 1-2-3 in the 13-14 girls 50 freestyle.  The 9-10 girls breaststrokers provided the next sweep, as Sheridan Phalen, Lauren Pacious, and Lily Penn completed the all girl Gators sweep.  The 13-14 girls then followed up with a sweep by Sarah Jones, Kaila Stein, and Emily Walzl.  The 9-10 girl fliers answered back with a sweep by Olivia Blondin, Emily Atkinson, and Abigail Dittman.  The 13-14 girls got the last word in fly as Mollie Pazz (you try typing that last name out a whole bunch of times!), Jessie Bricker, and Emily Walzl finished the sweeps.

The Gator girls also completed another type of sweep that Stat Boy has never seen before -- taking first place in all five age groups for backstroke. 

Gator heroes included Glenn Campagna, age 11, who swam backstroke as a 13-14 year old, and just missed third place.  Eleven year old Cole Miller swam with the big guys (15-18 year olds) in backstroke.  Anna Fracasso, at age 14, swam the 15-18 backstroke and placed second.  Anna also took 3rd place as a 15-18 breaststroker. Duncan Hoag, age 14, finished third in the 15-18 year old breaststroke.   He also swam the 15-18 fly.  Sarah Jones, age 14, just missed out on third in the 15-18 fly.  Thanks to all of those who swam up -- they earned four points for the team, and made sure we did not have empty lanes.

Double winners were Nick Dupuis (free and fly), Sheridan Phalen (free and fly), Holly Jansen (free and breaststroke), Kevin Adams-Mardi (free and breaststroke), Mollie Passacantando (free and fly), Sara Bertram (back and fly), and Gus Leyden (back and fly).

Individual winners were Emily Makin (back), Andrei Zaitsev (back), Mac Brotherton (back), Parker Fulghum (back), Torie Bolger (back), Brian McNamara (breaststroke), Sarah Jones (breaststroke), Olivia Blondin (fly), and Elaina Phalen (fly).  Overall, MVP swimmers took first place in 23 out of 40 races.

Second place points were scored by: James Piland (free), Cage Theriot (free and back), Andrei Zaitsev (free), Cameron Morey (free and back), Jessie Bricker (free and fly), Cyrus Adams-Mardi (free and back), Leigh Orleans (free and breaststroke), Ken Krogh (back and fly), Claudia Theriot (back), Anna Fracasso (back), Juliette Fore (breaststroke), Parker Blondin (breaststroke), Lauren Pacious (breaststroke), Sean Jansen (breaststroke), Elaina Phalen (breaststroke), Kaila Stein (breaststroke), Josh Stein (breaststroke), Emily Makin (fly), Brian McNamara (fly), Emily Atkinson (fly), and Tom Dupuis (fly).  Overall, Gators took 27 out of 40 second place finishes.

Third place points were earned by Charlie Ruppe (free and breaststroke), Mac Brotherton (back), Sean Jansen (free), Claudia Theriot (free), Nick Ducceschi (free and breaststroke), Torie Bolger (free), Austin Neal (free), Jessica Metter (free), Taylor Makin (back), Collin Sundsted (back), Kaila Stein (back), Joe Taylor (back and fly), Mollie Rutherford (breaststroke and fly), Lily Penn (breaststroke), Sam McBroom (breaststroke), Emily Walzl (breaststroke and fly), Duncan Hoag (breaststroke), Anna Fracasso (breaststroke), Abigail Dittman (fly), Liam Orr (fly), and Jessica Metter (fly).  Thus, Gators earned 26 of the 40 third place points.

On Saturday, in theory, the Pinecrest Piranhas come to MVP sporting an 0-1 mark -- we don't know when their second meet will be made up, so they could still be 0-1 by Saturday, or 1-1, or 0-2.  I used to be able to write this last paragraph with more certainty than this!