Relay Records? Relay Records! Really! Six Gator Team Records Go Down

Gator relays set six new team records at Divisional Relay Carnival on Wednesday night, with boys setting four new records and girls setting two.  A number of Gators on hand last night saw that fame can be fleeting, as they watched their recent records get broken.

The 200 free Mixed Age boys started off the record-breaking in fine fashion, as Nick Dupuis, Andrei Zaitsev, Cameron Morey, and Cyrus Adams-Mardi swam a 1:59.75, just squeaking under the 1:59.91 set last year by Cameron, Nick, Kevin Adams-Mardi, and Cyrus by just 0.16.

The 9-10 boys medley record was the next to go down, as Andrei Zaitsev (back), Parker Blondin (breaststroke), Charlie Ruppe (fly), and Clark Bayer (free) lowered their own mark set on June 29th from 1:13.71 to 1:12.03, a huge 1.68 second drop.

The Gators waited nine events, and a lengthy thunder/lightning delay, for the next team record.  The 9-10 girls free team of Emily Makin, Olivia Blondin, Abigail Dittman, and Juliana Skopp-Cardillo swam a scintillating 1:04.87, knocking Molly Cabral, Emily Walzl, Mollie Passacantando and Torie Bolger's 2008 record of 1:05.67 out of the books by 0.80.

The very next event was eventful, as the 9-10 boys also wrote their names in the free relay record portion of the Gator Records Scroll.  Andrei, Parker, Andrew Baker, and Clark swam a strong 1:04.06, to lower the previous mark by 2.08 seconds!  The old record was set in 2011, by Sean Jansen, Cole Miller, Tyler Dunn, and Nick Dupuis.

The 11-12 boys then followed that act with a 57.40 by Sean Jansen, Collin Sundsted, Jack Brunton, and Nick Dupuis.  Their swim was more than three seconds faster!!!! than the 2012 mark set by Cameron, Sean, Sam McBroom, and Dom Heratsch, which was a time of 1:00.78.

The final record broken was set by the 15-18 girls 200 meter free team of Maddy Bolger, Anna Fracasso, Torie Bolger, and Sara Bertram with a time of 1:58.37, fully 1.79 seconds quicker than the 2011 record.  That mark, swum by Sara, Maddy, Sophia Passacantando, and Julia Bolger, had been 2:00.16.

For several years now, every girls relay record has been set in this century -- 2006 or later.  Of the twelve boys relay records, seven have been in this century, with five old ones to go down.  All of the old ones are in the 13-14 or 15-18 age groups, so as the strong cohort of boys age 12 and under get older, those records from the early 1990s are in jeopardy.