Sportsmen's Relays and other Annual Swimming Traditions

There are certain meets and activities that we participate in every year outside of the normal meet schedule. These are sort of the "one-offs" on the calendar which are not normal NVSL or B meet functions.

For the MVP Gators, those meets are:

The Fort Hunt Sportsmen's Relays - held this past Wednesday at Riverside Gardens pool, and the general subject of this blog (eventually).
The IM Invitational - A regional meet of all Individual Medley races for teams in the greater Ft Hunt, Kingstowne, and Springfield areas. To be held on July 23rd.
The Gator Romp in the Swamp - An internal meet for 12 and under Gators, run by the 13 and over Gators. To be held on July 25th.

We'll discuss the latter two meets when we come around to them in July. But for now, a little more detail on the Fort Hunt Sportsmen's Relays. This is an annual event hosted by the Fort Hunt Sportsmen's Association. It is comprised of a number of "non-standard" relay events and the purpose is fun, camaraderie,  and sportsmanship.

The swimmer selection for this event is limited, and doesn't necessarily go by the standard selection criteria for other meets (i.e. the swim ladder). Instead, there are various other criteria that the coaches use to place swimmers in this one, such as:

Professional patty-cake abilities. 

Synchronized goggle adjustments. 

The ability to assemble as human Matryoshka dolls.

Advanced arm levitation. 

And of course, the ability to FLY. 

Okay, I admit, none of that is actually true, though the ability to fly never hurts. The Sportsmen's Relays do have an eclectic assortment of race formats in this event: mixed ages(such as 6 and under with 13 and overs), mixed gender, siblings, coaches, and more. There is no team competition as each race is its own event. Ultimately, it is a fun night of racing at the pool. 

The results of this year's Fort Hunt Sportsmen's relays, as well as all of our other meets, are available on the "Meet Information" page of the Gator Website here. (or at least will be available soon)

Pictures will be posted here. 

B is for Bluefish - B Meet Summary

Lots of learning at Developmental Meets:

stroke technique, starts, turns....proper goggle placement.  

Ah, the infamous B Meets, also known as "Developmental Meets." B meets are great. They provide an opportunity for swimmers to improve times, become legal in the more challenging strokes, earn their way onto A Meets, and hang out and socialize with teammates and opponents in a less competitive environment than the A meets. We normally schedule about four or five B meets per year (depending on how you classify B Meets) against other local pools in the Fort Hunt area. Our schedule this year looks like this:

• Jun 18th was Waynewood
• June 25th was Hollin Hills (that's what we're talking about here... eventually)
• July 2nd will be the Green & White meet (an internal Gator vs Gator meet)
• July 9th will be at Mansion House
• July 16th will be at Riverside Gardens

Coaching 'em up. Go Paul! 

Most things about the B Meets are great. The one thing that can be a little "not-so-great" is the length of time they last. While for most A Meets, we are in and out in 2 hours or less, B Meets can easily trend north of 3+ hours. Especially when we swim against the larger pools (like Waynewood) where both teams are bringing out seriously deep benches to swim.

Which brings us to Hollin Hills. The Bluefish have the fewest number of swimmers of the pools in the local area. So, while still getting all the positives out of the B Meets mentioned above, we actually finish (including clean-up!) while the sun is still out! Which is a very nice bonus.

As I said before one of the great things about B Meets is dropping time. And whoa-daddy, did we have some great time drops this week.

The following swimmers dropped 3 or more seconds in their events Monday:
8&under Free: Jackson Saloom, Jacob Milito, Rhett Torgerson, Finn Torgerson (nice work Torgersons!), Stefen Boyd, Abigail Kangas, Ella McMorrow, Tess McCall, Annelise Sams, Lacey Murphy
9-10 Free: Alexi Keys
11-12 Free: Kate McCall
13-14 Free: Carter Hamilton, Dakota Todd
8&under Back: MarcAnthony Boyd, BradLee Khaner, Abigail Kangas, Lacey Murphy, Annelise Sams
9-10 Back: Anna Starr, Sam Bruce, Ian Hixson

8&under Breast: Aleta McQueen

9-10 Breast: Evan Prible, Lila Colunga (okay, technically Lila's improvement was 2.99.... but I'm going to round up and put her in this category for this one. ;-) 

11-12 Breast: Natalie Ruppe

11-12 Fly: Nora Hixson

9-10 IM: Amelia Adams

11-12 IM: Cassidy Crowther, Mikayla Gordon

Go Gators!

The following swimmers dropped between 1 and 3 seconds: 
8&under Free: Fionn Miller, Oliver Anderson, MarkAnthony Boyd, Connor Mills, Alexandra Myers, KateBarber, Hadley Apostol
9-10 Free: Abigail Leach, Monica Morales, Amelia Adams, Anna Starr, Lila Colunga, Gavin Moore  (On an interesting aside, the top 7 finishers in the girls 9-10 Free all dropped time on Monday... very strong! I'm feeling pretty good about this stroke on Saturday!) 
13-14 Free: Mikey Himes
8&under Back: Ty Mills, Reese Myers, Elizabeth Kellogg, Evelyn Milito, Tess McCall
9-10 Back: Bianca Murphy, Heidi Schulte
11-12 Back: Mikayla Gordon
13-14 Back: Charlie Ruppe, Abby Tynan, Dakota Todd
8&under Breast: Noah Litonjua, Alexandra Myers
11-12 Breast: Elizabeth Whitson, Nora Hixson
11-12 Fly: Elizabeth Moorman
13-14 Fly: John French, Jack Klopson
15-18 Fly: Olivia Heck
9-10 IM: Sam Bruce, Monica Morales
11-12 IM: Alex North, Katya Zaitsev, Caroline Miller
13-14 IM: Jack Klopson, Abby Adams
15-18 IM: Elaina Phalen

The "Big Mover of the Week" award goes to 5 year old Stefen Boyd who dropped a whopping 15.45 seconds off of his 25m Freestyle time in the 8 and under event.

All in all, a pretty darn good showing for the Gators. And thanks to the Bluefish for competing with us and pushing us hard to get those great new times.

Admin Note: Following a brief technical interruption, pictures are posted for all of the previous meets on the Gator web site. I'm heading back to retroactively insert some pictures into the A meet summary from last Saturday's meet, so go ahead and read that blog entry again just so you can see the pics.

It's a well known fact (of which you may or may not be aware),
that Butterfly pictures make the best pictures.

Gator Swimmer of the Week (Week 1)

Getting psyched. 

Choosing this week's Swimmer of the Week would seem to be a pretty simple decision to make. In an eight day period, Donovan Kovalsky set SEVEN pool records for the 11-12 Boys age group: Freestyle (twice), Backstroke (once officially and once unofficially at a B Meet), Breaststroke, Fly, and Individual Medley. If that doesn't define a "Swimmer of the Week" performance, well then I don't know what does.

But trust me, there is some difficulty making the call. First, we're the Gators, we always have lots of great swimmers doing great things every week and this week was no exception. Second, this is the beginning of what I fully expect to be an epic season for Donovan... so do I really want to burn Swimmer of the Week on him up front? Or should I keep some powder in reserve his next phenomenal performance sometime in the next month and a half? Maybe a Divisionals title? Or an All-Star win? Dare we dream of an NVSL record perhaps? All of those are in the realm of possible for him this season. (Gator Blogger Note: It should be pointed out that there is no rule about not winning SOTW more than once per season, but it has been a practice that I've tried to maintain... but like all unwritten rules, it could change. We'll see.)

Little Gators take note:
You can't set records without great form. 

And third, technically, Donovan wasn't just a winner this week. He was also a loser, in a roundabout sort of way. He did have two of his records broken, which is never fun. (Yes, I know, they were broken by him... but, they were broken nonetheless!) As a matter of fact, he is only setting himself up for repeatedly having his records broken as the season progresses and he potentially breaks his own records again and again.

Alright, admittedly, I may be stretching the reasons not to give the award to him with that third one. But, I've always been told that supporting lists are better in groups of three, rather than just two. And I do need to fill some blog space. The decision was a probably bit easier than I might be trying to make it out here. He kicked some butt and now owns the record Gator books. (See here.)

Congrats, Donovan, our Gator Swimmer of the Week.

Father/Record-Holder bonding.

The Often Underestimated Hippo - A Tale of the High Point Pool A Meet

In the season preview blog post last week, I posed the rhetorical question of, "How fast can a hippo really swim anyway?" Apparently, while the definition of "swimming" can come under question (some scientists say they really are really "running" in the water rather than swimming), they can move pretty darn fast in the water.

And, apparently Hippos are Africa's most lethal animal. Who knew? So much for that prediction.

The Hippos of High Point Pool swam pretty fast. So did the Gators, of course, but we came up a bit short on the scoreboard in our first meet of the season.

Gator Ballet...Part I

As an interesting aside, its probably worth it to review the method of scoring for A Meets since this is the first one of the season. There are 5 age groups, 4 strokes, and both boys and girls. If you do the math there, you'll end up with 40 total individual events. Each individual event has six swimmers, with only the top 3 taking points: 5 points for first, 3 for second, and for third. That yields nine possible points for each individual event, which can all go to one team 9-0 (5+3+1) in a "clean sweep" or get split very closely 5-4 if one team's swimmer ends up 1st, and the other team finishes 2nd and 3rd (5 and 3+1). Ties result in an average of the points, but that's probably more math than we want to get into here.

Gator Ballet Part II...dancing (swimming?) with Hippos.

After the conclusion of the individual events, the meets turn to relays. There are six relays each for boys and girls which are all scored 5-0... five points for the winner and none for the losing team. Most of the relays are Medleys (four swimmers each swimming one stroke: Back, Breast, Fly, Free). The 8 and unders swim a Free Relay (4 swimmers at 25m each) and the final race is a mixed age Free Relay.

The interesting thing with this point system is that while it distributes points fairly, it also gives a strong reward to 1st place. If you think about those 40 events.... If one team always wins (5 points x 40 events) and the other team always gets 2nd and 3rd (4 x 40), then the team with the single winner in every heat would win by a score of 200-160 in the individual events. Any guesses what the score was of the meet after all individual events? 200-160....

We definitely won the costume contest. 

Okay, the Hippos didn't win every event and the Gators didn't come in 2nd and 3rd in every event, but on average, that's how it ended up.  In fact, the Hippos won 24 events and the Gators won 16. And in a mild (and welcome) contradiction to the flow of the meet, the Gators had five clean sweeps (1st, 2nd and 3rd) while the Hippos had three.

In addition to the five clean sweeps, there were several other high points for the Gators in this opening meet.

First, Donovan Kovalsky finished off his own personal clean sweep of the 11-12 year old boys record book by taking the Backstroke in an official event (he broke the record unofficially at the Waynewood B Meet last Monday). His record time of 33.98 bested Cameron Morey's time of 34.21 and removed the last remnants of any other swimmer from the record books at that age. In addition, He lowered his own record in the Free from 27.56 down to 27.24 seconds. (As I mentioned in the last blog post.... keep watching Donovan this year as some amazing things are likely to happen.) The NVSL record for 11-12 Freestyle is 26.44 seconds. With some steady progression, I think (and hope) that mark could be in reach this season. I'll be watching his races very closely all season, as should you.

Too many photogenic Gators in this picture not to post!

Second, the 15-18 year old girls 200m Medley Relay team (Cassidy Bayer, Taylor Makin, Elaina Phalen, and Sheridan Phalen) set a new team record also by winning in a time of 2:06.81. Congrats ladies.

And while not the last high point of the meet (there were many more), the last one I'll single out was a literal point... a point earned in the Backstroke by 6 year old Jackson Saloom, who finished 3rd with a time of 26.88. It's always a great accomplishment when 6 year olds even make it to the A meets, and even more magical when the bring home points for the team! Nice work, Jackson.

On another positive note, three age groups tied for the "Age Group of the Week," all scoring 32 points each (78% of possible points): the 9-10 year old girls, the 11-12 year old boys, and the 13-14 year old boys all dominated their competition. Nice swimming Gators!

And moving on, this week's Swim of the Week goes to Charlie Ruppe, who crushed it in the 13-14 Fly, improving his time by more than a full second and upsetting the higher seeded Hippo swimmer by 0.4 seconds to get the win.

NVSL Sportsmanship at its finest, helping Charlie
to that Swim of the Week, no less.

Next up is a home B Meet with the Hollin Hills Bluefish Monday night. Go Gators, drop those times!

The full results from this week's meet are available on the Gator webpage here. Division standings and results are available on the NVSL webpage here.

All meet photos are now posted here.

You may or may not have yet heard, but Butterfly pictures
make the very best  pictures. 

Easy Way Out: Time Trials and Waynewood B Meet and What to Watch For in 2018

Okay, okay, okay. I know we're a little behind schedule here at the Gator Blog. While normally I'd do a complete write-up on each event, I'm gonna drop a summary on you here and just shotgun the results of these first two developmental events.

Summary: The Gators are fast, the Gator team is deep, and the Gators are primed for an awesome season. Lots of Gators cut lots of time at time trials, and then did some more against Waynewood. On an individual basis, Donovan Kovalsky is really, really fast and swam under the 11-12 year old team records in 4 events at time trials... then added an unofficial record time in the remaining individual event (Backstroke) at the Waynewood B meet. In what is sure to be a recurring theme this season, Donovan swam really fast and busted some records. Get used to seeing his name all over the Gator record board.

The Time Trials complete Gator Results are HERE.

The Time Trials photos are HERE.

The Waynewood B Meet complete Gator Results are HERE.

The Waynewood photos are HERE.

The Gator Team Records are HERE. (Soon to be renamed as the Donovan Kovalsky 2018 Highlight Page.)

Okay, to be fair we may not actually rename the record book in Donovan's honor. Two other current (or recently departed) Gator swimmers have also shown similar domination on the record books. Cassidy Bayer owns 4 out of 5 records in most of the lower age groups and owns the best time in all 5 individual events for 15-18 year olds. And Kevin Adams-Mardi owns 4 out of 5 records for the 15-18 year old boys. Just saying, that's some pretty stellar company Donovan is joining there. It's going to be fun to watch this season.

I know this is a short summary for two meets. I promise future meet summaries will be back up to snuff, but the first A meet of the season starts in about an hour and I'm running late, so I need my coffee and then its off to the pool!

Go Gators!

Division 3 Outlook and Talking Head Accountability

In politics, sports, and everything else on TV, the Talking Heads constantly make predictions and say lots of stuff, but never get held accountable for when they are wrong. Well, not here at the Gator Blog! For the first post of the year, I'm going to address the seeding prediction from the end of last year and be held accountable! You can review that post here.

If you don't want to go back and read it (though you should), the summary was that while the general rule of thumb was that teams with 3-2 or 2-3 records tend to stay put in the same division the following year, there was very likely to be a 3-2 team moved up to Division 2 this year, and that there was a very good chance that would be our own Gators of MVP. A pretty bold prediction.

So, what ended up happening at the final seeding meeting back in February? Not only one, but TWO of the 3-2 teams were moved up from Div 3 to Div 2. Both Dowden Terrace and Vienna Aquatic, who were part of the three way tie with the Gators, were moved up. The Gators, however, remained in Division 3 for the 2018 season. So, while I got the concept right, the individual teams chosen to move up were different. What does that mean? Another fun year at Division 3 for us.

Interestingly, we are the only team from 2017 returning to Division 3 as three teams moved up (in addition to the two mentioned above, Langley moved to Division 1) and two teams moved down with Lakevale Estates going to Div 4 and Dunn Loring dropping to Div 5.

The newly formed 2018 version of Division 3 will be comprised of six teams: Donaldson Run, Hunt Valley, Lee-Graham, Hunter Mill, High Point Pool, and MVP. If this combination of teams seems pretty familiar to many of you, it should. Four teams in this group were all together in Division 2 back in 2016: MVP, Hunt Valley, Hunter Mill, and Donaldson Run.  And unlike last year when three of our five opponents were Dolphins, this year every team has its own unique mascot. Whew. Thank goodness. Variety is the spice of life.

2018 Division 3 Team Outlook

June 23rd vs High Point Pool Hippos 
The Hippos weren't with us in Division 2 in 2016. As a matter of fact, we haven't swam again the Hippos since I've been at MVP. They have steadily moved up the NVSL table in the past few years jumping all the way from Division 5 last year up to Division 3 now. While admittedly not doing my best research in trying to get this post out, I'm not sure if we've ever swam against them. But the gist is- they're Hippos. How fast can a Hippo really swim anyway? And I'm not sure why this meet makes me think of Disney's Fantasia, but it does. Go Gators!

June 30th at Lee-Graham Dolphins
The Dolphins are the other of the two teams who weren't together with us back in 2016. They were in Division 3 that year, dropped to Div 4 in 2017 and now return to Division 3 again. Our previous matchups have always been fun, competitive and quite spirited meets. (And they have a great clubhouse and deck overlooking the pool.) Thankfully, these are the only Dolphins we will be facing this year. Three times last year was just dolphin overkill. Go Gators!

July 7th vs Hunt Valley Stingrays
The rest of our opponents from here down were with us in Division 2 back in 2016. The Stingrays were 4-1 that year, finishing as runners-up to the Green Feet of Hamlet (and took home the trophy from Divisional Relays that year). Last year they were 1-4 in a very tough Division 2. We'll have the "home pool" advantage this year, and my research indicates that Stingrays often have trouble when trying to swim in The Swamp. I'm feeling confident. Go Gators!

July 14th vs Hunter Mill Sharks
The Sharks are also dropping down from Division 2 last year. Back in 2016, we travelled out to Hunter Mill, and word from our Gators was that the pool was exceptionally cold, which was just enough to keep our Gators from swimming their fastest. The meet results literally came down to the final relays and we lost that meet in a true barn burner, 211-209. (Disclaimer: While Hunter Mill does actually have a barn as their clubhouse, we didn't actually burn it down... that's just a figure of speech.) This year they're coming to the Swamp, and no "cold water" tricks are going to slow us down this time. Go Gators!

July 21st at Donaldson Run Thunderbolts
Donaldson Run is another very familiar opponent who we've competed against quite a bit over the years. Last year they were the undefeated champions in Division 4. They have a very viewer-friendly set-up at the pool with lots of spectator space and have been the host for Divisionals in the past (but not this year, as Divisionals will be at Hunt Valley). The Thunderbolts ended up being our lone victory back in 2016 (with a final score of 239-181). Hopefully they end up being our final victory in 2018 as we look to finish with a BANG! (Thunderbolts... get it?) Go Gators!

All in all, its shaping up to be another fun and exciting swim season in the NVSL. Division 3 is really going to be a barn burner this year! (Don't worry Hunter Mill, your clubhouse is safe.) The full schedule for Division 3 is available on the NVSL website here:  https://www.mynvsl.com/schedules?year=2018&div=3 Go Gators, let's win Division 3!

Be sure to check back over the weekend for more updates on the blog. I'm going to try to catch up with a couple posts for Time Trials and the Waynewood B Meet (both of which are overdue, I know) and results from our first meet against High Point Pool (which is tomorrow!).

Welcome to 2018. Go Gators!