IM Invitational Results: Deja vu vu vu vu vu vu vu vu

No, that's not an echo you are hearing... that's just the MVP Gators winning the IM Invitational for the 8th straight year (and 9th out of the last 10). Some things never get old.

What is the IM Invitational? Well, its a meet made up almost entirely of Individual Medley races. I said "almost" because the 8 & unders all swim the Fly instead of IM, since most of them are still a little too young to have developed the endurance to finish a 100m IM. The meet is contested every year between 12-14 local pools (this year there were 12). The top three IM swimmers in each age group are invited to swim (hence the "Invitational" part). More than three swimmers can participate as alternates (and MVP got quite a few in). The teams are broken down into three divisions based on pool size/division level (Colonial, Minuteman, and Patriot) and then scored to determine a winner and trophy for each one. The winner gets a trophy. Earning hardware is always fun.

The scoring is similar to other multi-team meets, with a graduated point structure depending on placement in the races: 10 points for 1st, 8 for 2nd, 6 for 3rd, and on down 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. No points are earned below 8th place. There is also a rule that only 3 swimmers per event can earn points... which means that if a team has a fourth swimmer who places in the top 8, they get the bragging rights that is entailed by such a good finish, but don't earn any points toward the team trophy. (We had one of these this year...keep reading.)

Needless to say, the Gators put together some great swims on this particular evening. Times were falling all over the place. Starting with the 8 and under Fly, Sam Bruce (our swimmer of the week from two weeks ago) kept his groove going on and dropped 3.58 seconds off his time to finish in 3rd place with a 19.55. Liam Fore (our week 1 swimmer of the week) swam his race in 20.25, cutting a half second off his best time to finish 5th. And for the girls, Josie Cowen dropped 0.75 seconds off her time, finishing in 23.61, which was good enough for 4th place. Noah Litonjua (-2.76) and Anthony Sarro (-0.24) also had great time improvements in their races and moved up the ladder.

For the 9-10 Boys, all four of the Gator competitors finished in the top 8: Tyler Swartz (1), Matthew Makin (2), Alex North (4), and Gavin Fore (7). This was one of those "slaughter rule" incidents that I alluded to earlier, where Gavin's swim didn't earn any points for the team because we're only allowed scores from three swimmers per event. (But Gavin still gets the bragging rights!) And of particular significance, Tyler's swim wasn't just first place in this event... it was first place ALL-TIME for a Gator swimmer in the IM, otherwise known as a new record! Tyler's time of 1:25.80 was nearly TWO FULL SECONDS below the previous Gator record set by Sean Jansen in 2011. That's some powerful swimming Tyler!

In the 9-10 Girls heats, three Gator swimmers dropped time: Cassidy Crowther (6th place, -2.50), Abbie Litonjua (7th place, -0.73), and Miriam Keller (-0.08).

The pattern continued for the evening, as Gators consistently placed multiple swimmers in the top 8 spots, and brought home the most points of all the teams, finishing comfortably ahead with 98 points to win the Colonial Division and bring home the trophy.


Here's how the rest of the Gator point-earners finished on the evening were:


1st place (10 points): Emily Makin, Cassidy Bayer
3rd place (6 points): Gabby Greszler, James Piland

4th (5 points): Juliana Skopp-Cardillo, Donovan Kovalsky

5th (4 points): Clark Bayer
6th (3 points): TJ Heck
7th (2 points): Jack Klopson, Sheridan Phalen
8th (1 point): Bella VanDamme, Brian McNamara

A great evening and some great Gator swimming. Nice work everyone! The complete meet results are available on the Gator website here. And lots of great pictures are available here.

And while we all know that Butterfly pictures make the best pictures.... look at this winner, with four 11-12 Flyers racing through their first leg of the IM. That was pretty impressive for them all to coordinate their strokes to be at the same phase at the time of the photo!

Butterfly pictures make the best pictures. (x4)