Your Gator Nation Blog: Meet Has Too Many Events for Gators To Win

On the way to swimming in his first A meet, seven year old Gavin Fore asked his mom if pools at A meets were longer than at B meets. Well, it seemed as though he was half right, as lane 4 seemed just a bit longer than lane 3 in the relays.* Trailing by just four points going into the relays, the Mount Vernon Park Gators won just four of the twelve relays to fall to 0-1 in Division III A Meet competition this season.

* It's a metaphor. Lanes three and four were of equal length.

Olivia and Anna got their green on!

After trailing at the end of freestyle, MVP took the lead in the backstroke events, and padded that lead in the breaststroke. Unfortunately, the Donaldson Run Thunderbolts stormed back in the butterfly and relays to win 222-198.

Juliana locked in a tight race

The Gators trailed 41-49 after free, but won back 52-38 to lead 93-87. A 50-40 win in
the breaststroke pushed the Gator lead to 16 points, but a 34-56 deficit in the fly put the Gators behind to stay. For statheads interested in numbers, the Gator boys won breaststroke 25-20, as did the Gator girls. Then, both genders lost fly by an identical 17-28 score. I know, weird, right? If you play 25-20-17-28 in the lottery and you win, I want a share of the prize money. Of course, if you lose, remember the old adage that the lottery is for people who are bad at math, so don't blame me.

Brian took a first in the fly, and

a second in the breaststroke.

Nick Dupuis broke his week-old 11-12 free record, knocking it down from 29.67 to 29.43. Nick had taken down a 1997 record by just 0.02 at Time Trials, but this time he lowered it again by an emphatic 0.24 seconds.

Katya is into it. Her teammate. . .

well, something caught her attention too!

For the boys, the race of the week was swum by Kevin Adams-Mardi, who tied for first in the 15-18 boys free with his main Thunderbolt opponent. For the girls, Lily Palmerino's 0.12 second win in the 8 & under 25 free was the race of the week -- the tightest Gator win over a DR opponent.

Coach Paul looking intense for the first meet.

The only Gator sweep came in the last individual event of the day, as Sara Bertram, Jessie Bricker, and Emily Walzl teamed to go 9-0 in the 15-18 girls fly.

I'm writing the blog, of course I can

put a picture of my own kid in it.

Double Gator winners were Nick Dupuis (free and breaststroke), Kevin Adams-Mardi (free and breaststroke), Cameron Morey (back and fly), Emily Makin (free and back), Cassidy Bayer (free and breaststroke), and Sara Bertram (back and fly).

Andrei on the attack.

Individual Gator winners were Lily Palmerino (free), Katya Zaitsev (back), Kenneth Krogh (back), Andrei Zaitsev (back), Cyrus Adams-Mardi (back), Colby Webber (breaststroke), Juliette Fore (breaststroke), Taylor Makin (breaststroke), and Brian McNamara (fly). Gators took first in 21 out of 40 individual events.

Juliette comes to the fore.

Second place points were earned by Jack Dupuis (free and breaststroke), James Piland (free and fly), Sheridan Phalen (free and fly), Colin Sundsted (back), Jessie Bricker (free and fly), Caroline Miller (back), Taylor Makin (back), Parker Fulghum (back), Torie Bolger (back and breaststroke), Brian McNamara (breaststroke), Sean Jansen (breaststroke), Caroline Baker (breaststroke), Lily Palmerino (fly), Juliette Fore (fly).

Kenny gave his parents

something to Krogh about.

Third place points were scored by Colby Webber (free), Clark Bayer (free), Juliana Skopp-Cardillo (free), Sean Jansen (free), Jessica Metter (free), Joseph Humphreys (back), Gus Leyden (back), Donovan Kovalsky (breaststroke and fly), Parker Fulghum (breaststroke), Sarah Jones (breaststroke), Kenneth Krogh (fly), Grace McGee (fly), Andrew Baker (fly), Elaina Phalen (fly), Cyrus Adams-Mardi (fly), and Emily Walzl (fly).