Minor Differences - A Meet vs Donaldson Run

As I was thinking about the team's place in the Division 3 standings following this week's A Meet with Donaldson Run, it reminded me of a web comic that I enjoy. It's called "The Oatmeal." Fair warning... it is not a comic that is for the faint of heart. It would definitely have a strong PG-13 rating if it was a movie (and perhaps even a bit more than that?). It is just a comic, so there are no graphic images or anything like that, but the language and subject matter tends to occasionally go places that is not suitable for the kids.

That said, he has drawn a whole series of comics on the concept of "Minor Differences" in which he outlines a number of small occurrences in life which are fundamentally different when just "Minor Differences" are imposed. There's quite a few of them, and it's pretty funny how a small change can really have a big impact on things. For example:

Ok, so that one is really tame... but trust me many of the other ones do lose the G rating. Check them out if you are interested, but be forewarned about the language and subject matter before deciding to click through. The Oatmeal Minor Differences.

The defending D3 sportsmanship champs: The MVP Gators. 

So, how does this all relate to MVP's season? Well, we lost the A Meet on Saturday to Donaldson Run. And we lost last week to Crosspointe. After two weeks our team record is 0-2. Yikes. Are we on our way to a winless season? Is Division 4 or 5 in our future next summer? Maybe. But probably not. In fact, I still stand by my earlier prediction that we're most likely still going to end up 3-2. Really? After starting 0-2??? Yup. I think so.

And here is where the Minor Differences thing comes in... there's a lot of different sequential ways to finish 3-2: win some, lose some, etc. The two extreme ways are starting 3-0 and finishing with two losses, or starting 0-2 and finishing with three wins.

So, which one sounds better? If you start out 3-0, everyone is so high on the string of wins that losing the last two feels like we microwaved the butter just a little too long. It's just a Minor Difference, but it really does have a much better feel at the end of the season if we start out 0-2 and then run the table for the last three meets, right? And that's what we are poised to do right now! (Maybe... of course we still need to win those next three... but we have a very good possibility to do just that.)

Is anyone else reminded of a flamingo sitting on the back of
a Gator in the Everglades? 

Part of the reason the strong finish is seems more positive is what is known as the recency effect, which is a phenomenon in which people tend to remember more recent events better. Seems straightforward, right? But, there is another interesting psychological study that shows people's satisfaction is actually influenced more by the way things finish. Take a long vacation? The last few days will be the determinant of how much you enjoy it. Eat a great meal? The dessert will likely be the defining characteristic when you try to decide if you loved it or not. Attend a boring baseball game? You won't remember it that way if there is a 9th inning comeback. Start the season 0-2, but finish it 3-0? You're going to remember that 3-2 season positively.

So, why do I think we're going to win the next few? Because I think we met up against the two top teams in the first two weeks. We still have our work cut out for us, but this week was a better performance by the Gators individually and as a team. Yes, we lost, but we really almost pulled out the win, had it not been for four races that DR was able to steal enough points from us to take the victory.

Won the dance-off last week... won the National Anthem this week.
We may be 0-2, but we're killing it in the fine arts category. 

This meet started off a little slow for the Gators as we got swept in the first event and ended Freestyle down 39-51. We basically split Backstroke with the Thunderbolts 44-46, and found ourselves down 14 points after two events. But some great Breaststroke swims found the Gators cutting into the lead by taking that stroke segment 50-40 and trailing only by 4 heading into Fly. The drama was getting high!

But then, DR brought the Thunder in Fly, taking 52 of the 90 points to open their lead to 18 heading into relays. The Gators were still alive, but would need to win 8 of 12 relays to pull out the victory. Donaldson Run held on to their lead and ended up taking seven relays en route to their 224-196 victory.

A victory of 10 seconds begins with the first leg...

That said, we really had a great performance this week by the 15-18 Girls. They really outperformed their seed times and put up quite a few personal bests en route to winning 36 out of 41 points this week. That's right... they only surrendered 5 points to DR in total. Clearly our eldest Gators have been awoken from their winter slumber and are back in the hunt. A few key races were Emily Makin cutting 0.3 seconds to leapfrog her challenger and win the Back, Olivia Heck dropping nearly a second to move up into 2nd place in the Breast, and Gabby Greszler cutting a quarter second to slip into 2nd place in Fly. All-in-all, they won every race this week including the only clean sweep, with Sheridan Phalen, Gabby Greszler, and Juliana Skopp-Cardillo taking all the points in Freestyle. Sheridan won the Free and Fly, while Emily was the victor in Back and Breast. The team of Olivia Blondin, Emily Makin, Sheridan Phalen, and Gabby Greszler brought home a 10 second victory in the Medley Relay. That solid group performance earns them the Age Group of the Week honors.

Dis one gonna be fast...

In the Race of the Week category, we had a couple great ones with lots of drama, so I'm not going to narrow this down to just one. First up, we had two races decided by just a few hundredths of a second... that's close in case your are wondering (and good reason to NOT cut your fingernails on meet days). Interestingly, both were in the Breaststroke. In the 13-14 Boys race, Donovan Kovalsky edged Jack Klopson by 0.05 seconds as the two Gators both posted personal best times and finished 1-2 in that event. And in the 15-18 Boys race, Charlie Ruppe continued his undefeated season by cutting nearly half a second off his best time to beat his opponent by the narrowest margin possible: 0.01 seconds. See if you can start and stop a watch faster than either of those victory margins... I bet you can't. We had a third great race that warrants mention here in the 11-12 Boys Backstroke. In a blistering fast race, Alex North cut his best time by 0.9 seconds to edge out his opponent, who had been seeded more than a half second ahead of him.

"And how about Fletch? He's actually 6'5", with the afro 6'9"..."

And how about the record roundup? I'm pretty sure it doesn't count as an official meet if we don't utter these words: Donovan Kovalsky set a new record.  This time, he lowered his own Freestyle record from last week by about 0.4 seconds... the new mark for the Boys 13-14 Free is now 26.03 seconds.

So, the stage is set: an 0-2 start. Next week we travel to battle The Woods of Vienna in an effort to begin the climactic 3-0 finish...it's gonna be fun to watch us try.

The complete results from the meet, as always, are available on the Gator website.

All the pictures from this (and every) meet are also available there.

Go Gators!

Fly pictures make the best swim pictures.