Individual Divisional Championships

It was a dark and stormy morning. The forecast had called for nothing but constant rain on the penultimate event of the 2017 NVSL season. Not allowing the weather forecast to bring them down, spririts were high at the Vienna Aquatic Club pool where Division 3's best swimmers gathered to contest the annual championship races. The top two swimmers in every event enter the pool and swim for all the marbles... to determine the year's Divisional Champion swimmers. And Champions we have.... MVP Gators won 10 events and had nine runner-up finishes.

A Championship level start. 

As is often the case, the weather forecast turned out to be more bark than bite, as the rain missed Vienna for the most part, with the skies only opening up for a short sprinkle or two. The swimmers capitalized with some terrific performances. Gators finishing first and designated as Division 3 champions were: Tyler Swartz (Free & IM), Donovan Kovalsky (Free), Clark Bayer (Free), Liam Fore (Fly), Matthew Makin (Fly) Juliana Skopp-Cardillo (Free), Abigail Litonjua (Breast), and Cassidy Bayer (Fly & IM).

Posing for GQ or getting psyched up to swim? You decide.

Finishing second were: Alex North (Back), Andrew Baker (Fly), Matthew Makin (IM), TJ Heck (IM), Helen Milito (Free), Sheridan Phalen (Free), Emily Makin (Breast & IM), and Gabby Greszler (Fly). And third place finishers were: Clark Bayer (Back), Alex North (Breast), Donovan Kovalsky (Breast), Charlie Ruppe (Fly), parker Fulghum (Free), and Taylor Makin (Breast).


Thirty-three more Gators finished in the top 6, earning a divisionals plaque. Full results of the meet are available on the NVSL website here.

One Heck of an IM swim. 

Divisional Championships serve a dual purpose, in addition to crowning a champion in every event, the meet also serves as the qualifier for the All-Star meet held this coming Saturday. The top 18 swimmers from all 102 teams in the NVSL qualify for the individual All-Star meet. Based on their great swims, 11 Gators qualified in 15 events for the upcoming All-Star meet! (Update: following a few scratches from around the county, one swimmer moved up above the cut in an event, bringing our total to 11 swimmers in 16 events. And one more swimmer has been designated as an alternate for two events.) 

Below are our All-Star qualifiers and their seeds:

Name	Event	Seed
Cassidy Bayer	15-18 Fly	1
Cassidy Bayer	15-18 IM	1
Emily Makin	13-14 Breast	2
Emily Makin	13-14 IM	2
Juliana Skopp-Cardillo	13-14 Free	4
Donovan Kovalsky	11-12 Free	7
Tyler Swartz	10U IM	7
Abigail Litonjua	9-10 Breast	7
Clark Bayer	13-14 Free	8
Liam Fore	8u Fly	9
Matthew Makin	10u IM	10
Gabrielle Greszler	13-14 Fly	11
Donovan Kovalsky	11-12 Breast	11
Matthew Makin	9-10 Fly	12
Sheridan Phalen	15-18 Free	17

Update... as mentioned above, we've had three additions since the meet: Juliana Skopp-Cardillo is now above the cut for 13-14 Fly and will swim in that event, and Alex North has moved up to be the Alternate for both 9-10 Back and Breast. 

As far as Swims and Swimmmers of the Week goes, this is usually a pretty tough call. But Juliana Skopp-Cardillo made it easy for me this week as she clearly ate her Wheaties before the meet and put together two remarkable swims. She pulled an upset in the 13-14 Free, demonstrating what "outside smoke" is all about as she came from Lane 1 to finish 1st in a time of 28.40. And she also demonstrated the rare "1st heat smoke" as she outswam several higher seeds to pull into the top-6, finishing 5th in the Fly with a time of 32.35.. which we now know puts her into All-Stars for both events. Cutting 1.11 and 2.15 seconds respectively off her times... that's 3.36 seconds dropped at divisionals... against all the other top swimmers. That's about as clutch of a set of performances as I've ever seen. Smoking. 

7 year old Championship Fly photos REALLY
make the best photos. 

For the boys, we had two swimmers win Divisionals from the lower half of the age group. Donovan Kovalsky (11) won the 11-12 Free in a blistering quick time of 29.34 and Liam Fore (7) won the 7-8 Fly in 20.11. In case you don't quite grasp what that means... these two Divisional Champs get to come back and compete again in the same age group next year. Somebody better be ready to do some work on that record board at the pool... the present is awesome and the future looks bright.

As always, lots more great photos are available on the Gator website here. Check them out.

Great job to all the Gator swimmers! That was an outstanding performance at Divisionals. And good luck to those heading to All-Stars! Show them that Gator speed on Saturday!  Be sure to check back next week to read about how our congregation of Gators fare at All Stars.

Go Gators!