Your Gator Nation Blog: Rising Stars - Gator Romp in the Swamp

Running a tight meet, just like Mom and Dad.

The NBA has its Rising Stars game. MLB has the All-Star Futures game. Mount Vernon Park has the Romp in the Swamp. All of these are opportunities for rising performers to strut their stuff on the big stage. And this year's Romp did not disappoint! (And neither did the Rising Stars game nor the All-Star Futures game, for that matter.)

The Romp in the Swamp is the final B meet of the year. It is unique in that it is only for 12 and under swimmers, while the older swimmers and other Divisional Championship qualifiers serve as the officials for the meet. The result is a great win-win meet... lots of opportunity for rising Gator stars to show their progress. And for the older Gators, as they say, if you really want to learn a subject, then teach it. Having the opportunity to serve in official roles helps them all learn more about their sport and the challenges of putting on a meet.

Developing form.

One of the great things about this meet is all of the Little Gators who participate and show off how much they've improved over the course of the summer... some improve by posting faster times, some by swimming new events, and some by making it across the pool successfully! We had 9 swimmers put up their first time of the year in Freestyle, 6 in Backstroke, 9 Breaststrokers, and 4 new Flys. Congrats to Paige Santore, Amy Andreas, Paige McCloskey, Lacey Murphy, Spencer Keene, Jack Critchley, Leon Cherqaoui, Connor Mills, BellaVictoria Porter, Oliver Anderson, Graeme Warburton, Boyd Banach, Bianca Murphy, Alexandra Holden, Andrea Morales, Kate Barber, Lincoln Jetton, Maxwell Kelch, and Lizzie Grubbs for testing the waters and successfully completing a new stroke.

Little hands, little feet...

Some of the time cuts were remarkable! Daniel Williams III (8) won the (virtual) trophy for most time dropped by cutting 20.01 seconds off his Backstroke, Madelyn Black (7) was the runner-up cutting 16.59 seconds off her Free, and Daniel also took third, cutting 15.72 seconds off his Freestyle. Eight other Gators cut five seconds or more from their times:

Charlotte Robinson (5) -12.02 Freestyle
Abigail Kangas (5) -11.17 Freestyle
David Black (10) -8.30 Freestyle
Rachel Keenan (6) -8.09 Freestyle
Monica Morales (9) -6.87 Breaststroke
Jason Saloom (5) -6.70 Backstroke
Finn Higgins (6) -6.62 Freestyle
Oliver Anderson (5) -6.51 Freestyle

Summer swim works! What terrific improvements!

Timers trying to earn those coveted doubles and triples.

Six year old Andrea showing off her Breaststroke skills.

And in the "Rookie Game" mode of this meet, there were 39 swims by our 6 and under Gators in this meet, led by 25 Freestylers, 11 Backstrokers, and 3 talented young swimmers (Andrea Morales, Kate Barber, and Lincoln Jetton) who posted a time in Breaststroke. It's great to see so many Little Gators in the water!

All of the individual results from the RITS are posted on the Gator website here.

Tons of great photos are also available from this and every meet here.