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.