Fish in a Pond - Divisional Relay Breakdown

This is Part Two of the annual two-part Divisional Relay Blog... the meet that is SO AWESOME it takes two blog entries to capture it all. If you haven't read Part One yet, you should do that first. Here it is.

Look at that blue sky. What... no thunderstorms? 

We've all heard the age-old question of whether it is better to be a Big Fish in a Small Pond or a Small Fish in a Big Pond. Both have advantages and disadvantages. The situation matters. The fish matter. In academics, there is a study that shows student self-confidence is higher when they are Big Fish in a Small Pond (which makes sense). There is a lot of value in that self-confidence in both academics and athletics (and life).  One difference to that situation is when participants in the system (i.e. the fish in the pond) get to watch other fish grow from small fish to big fish. There is a very valuable lesson to be learned when you see others rise from the same levels as you and then achieve higher levels. Simply, it lets you see that you can do that too.

Part of being a Small Fish in a Big Pond is that you get exposed to lots of other fish. And lots of those fish become idols, or role models, or even mentors. I threw up a hash tag in Thursday's blog "#Gators4Life" to make light of the two pictures of our 13-14 Boys showing their growth over the past four years. But that whole #Gators4Life thing is real. The MVP swim team (and the NVSL) is most definitely a Big Pond. And being in the Big Pond only amplifies the number of connections all these Gators have in their summer swim experience... and in life. Most swimmers start out as small fish, but can watch the team leaders and learn their habits, and follow along in their footsteps. Thankfully, the MVP Gators have lots of great footsteps to follow in. We have had All-Star Champions, NVSL Record Holders, and even US National Team members within our ranks.

Gator Grads. #Gators4Life

To borrow a phrase from West Point, the Gators have a "Long Green Line" of leaders who have helped shape the program.  Take, for example the graduated Gators who came to watch their friends and family in the relays on Wednesday. Sitting up on the hill at Donaldson Run, those Gators watched their records get broken by their friends/family/former teammates. But they know, as we all do too, that the reason the younger Gators are where they are now... capable of breaking those records, is because of the Gators who came before them. Who inspired them. Coached them. Mentored them. It's because leaders like Elaina and Parker that we have younger Gators today able to break their records.  There are many reasons that we keep seeing so many records getting broken week after week, season after season. One of those reasons is that we swim in a Big Pond and have deep talent. Another reason is that we have Big Footprints to follow and our swimmers do a great job following in them. When you learn from the best, you become the best.

Growing Gators. #Gators4Life

So how did things turn out on Wednesday? Pretty darn good for the Gators. Ten relay teams qualified for All-Stars (as noted by the asterisks below). Six Gator records were broken (as indicated below). Here's the list:

First Place Relay Teams (Every 1st place team made All-Stars)
*Boys Mixed Age Free: Alexander North, Sam Bruce, Donovan Kovalsky, Clark Bayer (Record)
*Boys 11-12 Medley: George Schulte, Alexander North, Matthew Makin, Gavin Fore
*Boys 11-12 Free: Matthew Makin, Gavin Fore, Jack Alzona, Alexander North
*Boys 13-14 Medley: Joe Humphreys, Jack Klopson, James Piland, Donovan Kovalsky (Record)
*Girls 15-18 Free: Juliana Skopp-Cardillo, Emily Makin, Gabby Greszler, Sheridan Phalen (Record)

Another day, another record.

Second Place Teams
*Girls 8&U Medley: Elizabeth Kellogg, Hayden Ward, Natalie Crowther, Margaret Driscoll
*Girls 8&U Free: Margaret Driscoll, Kate Barber, Andrea Morales, Natalie Crowther

*Boys 13-14 Free: James Piland, Jack Klopson, Jack Dupuis, Donovan Kovalsky

Boys 9-10 Free: Liam Fore, Noah Litonjua, Anthony Sarro, Samuel Bruce

Third Place Teams
*Girls 15-18 Medley: Emily Makin, Taylor Makin, Gabby Greszler, Sheridan Phalen (Record)
Boys 9-10 Medley: Samuel Bruce, Anthony Sarro, Liam Fore, Noah Litonjua

The OMG Category
How deep is Division 3? The 15-18 Boys set MVP records in BOTH of their swims on Wednesday, yet still placed 4th and 5th in those two races.

*4th Place... 15-18 Free: Cole Miller, Andrew Baker, John French, Clark Bayer (Record)
5th Place... 15-18 Medley: John French, T.J. Heck, Cole Miller, Clark Bayer (Record)

Boom Boys.

There were five races at the D3 Carnival that produced All-Star teams from 4th place (including our own 15-18 Boys Free). That's 4 out of 6 teams making the All-Star cut... in five different events. D3 is deep.

Your Mixed-Age Free Champions.

In other Division 3 round-up notes, there were 22 total races: Donaldson Run won the Carnival and had the most 1st place finishes with six. MVP finished second and had five wins. High Point and Crosspointe each won four races, while Vienna Woods took two and Hunter Mill won one.

Of special note, all four 15-18 races broke records: Boys and Girls, Free and Medley. That's some special stuff going on at the top level of the team. Nice work big Gators! I think we may need a new cheer, "Big Hands, Big Feet, Our Biggest Gators Can't Be Beat!  Catchy.

Another interesting note, last year's 13-14 Boys broke a 27 year old record, then this group upped the ante this year and broke it again. It's a little crazy when that stuff happens, but again... it's a sign of those footsteps, when little Gators grow up watching big Gators do great things, they want to do those things too. And then when they successfully adopt those habits and training regimens, it increases the overall team performance and you see those records fall.

Wondertwin powers, activate! 

Getting 10 teams into All-Stars is among the all-time highs for the Gators, and something to be proud of. But even more remarkable is that of those 10 relay teams, SEVEN of them are going to be in the final heats at All-Stars (meaning top six). That is an all-time high for the Gators. We have had 10-12 teams in All-Stars before, but never have we put so many in the elite final heats. Seven teams of Big Fish swimming with those other Big Fish from around the NVSL. It's going to be fun to watch.

Cheering makes 'em swim faster! Go G...ators! 

If you haven't been to All-Stars, EVERYONE is invited. The D1 teams ALWAYS have the biggest crowds because members come cheer even when they aren't swimming in the races. We could use some of that cheering support, too! (Those D1 pools are pretty loud, but we could challenge with our cheers if enough people show up!) It all starts at 4pm on Wednesday- details at the link. Hope to see everyone there.

Congratulations, Gators, on another terrific Relay Carnival.

Go Gators! #Gators4Life

Fly photos are still the best Relay photos. 

Plagiarism and the Divisional Relays!

I was reading through last year's blog entry for the Divisional Relays to compare how we did then versus how we did now (spoiler alert- pretty good both years, and scarily similar). That similarity in performance means a lot of that blog applies perfectly to this year: background info, hype, record breaking swims, bridesmaid finish... I felt like I was reading a story about this year with a few different names and times. And so, I was tempted to just stick a link in here and call it a day. But, instead I'm just going to grossly plagiarize myself and use a lot of the same stuff again. As they say, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

So, to get you up to speed if you aren't in the loop yet- Divisional Relays are awesome. This (and its big brother, the All-Star Relays) is my favorite meet of the year. When you boil it down, most of the swim team experience is really lots of individual performances placed within a team context. But not the Relays. The relays are a pure team event in every way and the team atmosphere is palpable. This is one of those times that you really see the leadership and character development stuff happening with the swimmers as they motivate each other to excel, celebrate together in success, and pick each other up in defeat.

To refresh on the background, Divisional Relays are a meet matching up the six teams in our division (Division 3, for us this year) with every age group swimming a Medley Relay and a Free Relay, with two Mixed Age Free Relays thrown in there for good measure.

New MVP 15-18 Free Record Holders. 

Divisional Relays also serves as a filtering meet, meaning that the times generated across the NVSL are used to determine the teams invited to the All-Star Relays next week. An important note regarding All-Stars is that best times from "A" Meets don't count for qualification... ONLY times recorded at Divisional Relays can qualify them, so there is lots of pressure on the teams to perform on this one night. All-Star cuts are determined by selecting the top 18 relay times throughout the entire NVSL, so the exact cut is never known, but last year's numbers are usually a pretty good guide. Placing 1st or 2nd at Divisionals does not automatically get a team into All Stars. The time is what matters. In some Divisions, no teams get in to All Stars at all, while in the strongest divisions, even a 5th or 6th place team can make All-Stars if the times are good enough.

This year's Divisional Relays were held Wednesday night, July 10th.  Every team and age-group comes to relays with multiple goals: (1) Win the race, (2) Swim fast enough to make the cut for All-Star Relays, (3) Score lots of points to help the overall team place high in the meet, and (4) Maybe set a record. MVP nailed it in all of these areas with lots of teams winning their races, lots of teams swimming fast enough to likely make the All-Star cuts, lots of teams scoring points to push MVP high up the overall standings for the meet, and lots of records.

We'll be posting more details and pictures in the next 24 hours once the final results are certified and sent out, but for now here's a bit of a teaser.... SIX new Gator records were set and quite a few age groups have very good odds to make All-Star Relays next week. Last year, we sent nine teams to All-Stars... and based on preliminary forecasts, it looks like we'll be somewhere in that ballpark again. And if a few of those teams on the bubble make the cut, we could even surpass it. Note: we know that some of our teams are "below the cut" based on times from previous years, so they will almost certainly make the All-Stars, but nothing is official until the NVSL compiles and validates all the times from all 17 NVSL divisions from Wednesday. The cut times don't normally change very much from year-to-year, but they do change.

New MVP 13-14 Boys Medley Record Holders. 

Ok, you got me.  This is actually the
new 13-14 Record Holders. But, isn't that old
one from when they were 9-10 super cute.
#Gators4Life

Preliminary results show that new Gator records were set in the Boys Mixed Age Free Relay, the 13-14 Boys Medley Relay, the 15-18 Girls Medley Relay, the 15-18 Boys Medley Relay, the 15-18 Girls Free Relay, and the 15-18 Boys Free Relay. Awesome work Gators! And hello 15-18's (I see you). If you didn't notice the repeats in there, the 15-18 Boys and Girls each broke team relay records in both of their events (Medley and Free). More information and all the specific details (swimmers, times, etc) will be coming after the results and final times are released Thursday night. Check back for the update on Friday.

For the overall team competition, the Relay Carnival itself is scored differently than normal meets since there are six teams swimming in every event. Every team that completes a race without a DQ gets points. First place teams get 14 points, second place teams get 10, third place gets 8 and so on progressively down 6, 4, 2 for the other three. Then those points are totaled up at the end of the meet to give a final score to each team and crown a Relay Carnival Champion. MVP came in 2nd place overall, behind Donaldson Run. Interestingly, second place seems to be our sweet spot at this event lately and we are collecting a lot of bridesmaid dresses in the old MVP Swamp Closet, having now finished 2nd at Relays in five out of the last eight years. And for those wondering, our most recent 1st place finish was a tie with Little Rocky Run in 2015. Final scores for Division 3 this year were:

214 Donaldson Run
176 Mount Vernon Park
174 High Point Pool
160 Crosspointe
120 Hunter Mill
120 Vienna Woods

That's a strong second place finish in a tough division. Great work Gator relays! Check back tomorrow for the rest of the specific details and to get the low-down on All-Star Relays coming up on July 17th.

Go Gators!

Edit: You can read part two of this blog here.

Trophies for Everybody! Gator Swimmers of the Week #3

The calm before the swim storm.

I'll admit, the whole modern movement of giving everyone a trophy rubs me the wrong way. I subscribe to the philosophy that when you reward everyone, it reduces the intrinsic value of that reward. Even as a youth athlete, I always felt that getting a t-shirt or jersey was a great participation award, and a trophy always felt better to me only for winning something. I always thought a participation trophy seemed a little hollow. (As an adult, I'll take the t-shirt every time.) That said, I think a lot of programs and leagues have done a good job of giving all participants awards, but then differentiating the awards for the top achievers.

For example, the local soccer league gives everyone a medal each season, but then the tournament champions get a separate one for winning. The local basketball league only gives awards to the top two teams each year. The MVP Swim and Tennis teams both have followed a pattern of recognizing everyone with awards, but giving larger or more ornate trophies to the higher achievers. The NVSL does something similar with awards for Divisional Championships, All-Stars, etc. All the participants get something, but the size/structure of the ribbon/medal/trophy grows with higher levels of achievement.

Ok, I'll step down off my soap box and get to the point of the article- this week's Swimmer of the Week. To be honest, I'm sort of tempted to give this one to just about everybody. We really had an outstanding meet up and down the different age groups. Lots of top notch swims in there. And really, narrowing it down is a pretty tough challenge... a challenge I am thankful for. Sort of an embarrassment of riches. Its nice to have so many of our swimmers doing so good at the meets.

Little Hands, Little Feet... 

Trophies for everyone might be the best solution here. We had EIGHT swimmers who finished with perfect (or near perfect) results on Saturday. EIGHT!

Look at these swimmers:

Lincoln Jetton (8u): 1st Breast + 1st Fly + 1st Free Relay = 15 points
Natalie Crowther (8u): 1st Breast + 1st Fly + 1st Medley Relay = 15 points
Alex North (11-12): 1st Free + 1st Back + 1st Medley Relay + 1st Mixed Age Relay = 20 points
Matthew Makin (11-12): 1st Breast + 1st Fly + 1st Medley Relay = 15 points
James Piland (13-14): 1st Back + 1st Fly + 1st Medley Relay = 15 points

Our 8 & Unders can't be beat. Literally. 

Then there are three with an asterisk because of some 2nd place finishes, but deserve to be included in here. First, these two:

*Donovan Kovalsky (13-14): 1st Free + 2nd Breast + 1st Medley Relay + 1st Mixed Age = 18 points
*Jack Klopson (13-14): 2nd Free + 1st Breast + 1st Medley Relay = 13 points

*The asterisk for these two is because Donovan and Jack both got a 2nd place finish because of each other... no one on the other team could beat them, they each could have won those events but they cannibalized each other's points and ended up sharing 1st and 2nd in their individual events.

Sharing the wealth in the 13-14's

Then, there is this asterisk:

**Sheridan Phalen (15-18): 1st Free + 1st Fly + 1st Relay + 2nd Mixed Age Relay = 15 points

**Okay, but wait... didn't the Mixed Age girls lose their relay? Isn't this a list of perfect results? How can Sheridan be included in here with a loss? Well, because this is one of those times the data doesn't tell the full story.

Wasn't it Dory who said, "Just keep winning..."
Or something like that.

Whoa. I can't believe I just wrote that. The data ALWAYS tells the story. But, maybe not this time. Sometimes you need to see these things with your own eyes. If you were there watching, you saw the flawless anchor leg of that race swam by Sheridan.  Handed a deficit of nearly two body lengths, she proceeded to swim so fast that she closed the gap up all the way until the final result was only half a second behind the VW team. I didn't have a watch on the splits... but Sheridan certainly ate up some big chunks of time. She had to have shaved around 3-4 seconds off the gap to make it such a close finish. If the pool had been 5 or 10 yards longer, she certainly would have completed the comeback.

Race Ready.

I haven't even mentioned some of the amplifying information like how the 13-14 Boys Medley Relay (three of whom are on the list above) set a new MVP record by over a second and a half. Or that the 15-18 Girls Medley shaved 4 seconds off their time to upset the top-ranked VW girls. Ok, technically I did mention both of those things in the weekly meet blog... but I haven't mentioned it here.

Just look at that list. That's a lot of high quality swimmers to choose from for the SOTW. How am I supposed to narrow that down? (Well, let me let you in on a little secret... since the SOTW is an unofficial recognition anyway, mentioning all of the candidates here is pretty much like giving a "trophy for everyone" anyway, so does it really matter who is the final chosen SOTW? Look what I have become... am I now a trophy for everyone guy?)  

But, I will stay firm to my beliefs and make the final call... Congratulations Lincoln Jetton, Swimmer of the Week! Why Lincoln? I'm going with largest total margin of victory in the individual events as the tie-breaker: he won the Breast by 3 seconds and the Fly by 8. That pushes him to the top of a very large mountain this week. (And congrats to all the other runners-up for the equally impressive performances.)

Go Gators!

Fly pics are the best swim pics.

Fairy Tales in The Woods - Vienna Woods "A"

I have a theory that the Brothers Grimm must have had a really terrible experience in the woods as children. Same for Walt Disney. Personally, I like the outdoors. Heading to the mountains or woods and hiking, biking, or camping... those are some of my favorite pastimes. But, I'm pretty sure that was not the case in the Disney or Grimm families. Have you noticed that every time something evil or scary happens in a Disney movie or Grimm fairy tale, it generally happens in the woods? The Beast was banished to the Black Forest. Sleeping Beauty fell under her spell in the woods (in fact, the full title of the story is "Sleeping Beauty in the Wood") . Where did Elsa go when she left the castle? The Frozen Woods. The list goes on and on. The wooded forest seems to be the backdrop of all the bad things that happen in these stories (we ain't even going to mention Bambi). This is obviously a consistent setting for evil in the Grimm and Disney tales. But why? My theory is that they had to have some sort of bad experience in the woods as children themselves, and it clearly left a mark.

Beware: R.O.U.S. known to inhabit "The Woods."

Which brings us to our weekly "A" Meet for the MVP swim team. This week, we headed to "The Woods" of Vienna, of course. But, what reason would we have to fear entering these woods? Surely, there is no Beast, no Witch, nor any R.O.U.S for us to fear coming across.  But... maybe we do have reason to fear?

How about a little history? It is a fact that the last three times (2013-2015) MVP and Vienna Woods have matched up for a swim meet, it has been the home team that emerged victorious. So, on Saturday when we drove the winding path into Vienna Woods (made even more winding by faulty GPS directions...but that's another story), we had history, fear, and the Brothers Grimm all against us.

One of the things I normally do before a meet is run some numbers based on the seed times of the swimmers in the meet. When I did that for this meet, the pre-game analysis showed that we were set for a near virtual tie. If everyone swam their normal quality times, there was a good chance it was going to end up in a tie or a very narrow margin in one direction or the other. Admittedly, I liked to see that... as you know, I'm a fan of drama. But, lest we not forget... history said that the home team always had the advantage in this matchup, so I was a little nervous.

The scary setting was established... we were in The Woods.

Heroes are coming! 

What does every fairy tale need to find that happily ever after ending? Heroes and heroines. And here is where the MVP Gators enter the story. And it didn't take long for the first of them to emerge. In the 9-10 Girls Freestyle event, Helen Milito and Alexandra Myers came to our early rescue by swimming their best times ever to steal 3 crucial points. Helen was forecast to finish 2nd, but cut 1.22 seconds off her time to pass the VW lead swimmer and take the victory. Meanwhile, Alexandra cut nearly a full second off her time to overtake another swimmer and get the 3rd place finish. In meet scoring, a second place finish earns 3 points, while taking 1st and 3rd gives us 6. That's a gain of 3, and a loss of 3 for the other team, giving us a crucial early net 6 point swing in a tight meet. That point swing was step one of our success, and earned this one the "Race of the Week" honor.

Step two was the 13-14 Boys (Donovan Kovalsky, Jack Klopson, and Jack Dupuis) taking the first sweep of the day with their Freestyle race a few events later and earning the full 9 points. With these and the other Freestyle swims, MVP jumped out to an early 48-42 lead after Free.

But, no fairy tale is complete without some drama and despair in there. The Woods strengthened their resolve and our heroes were overcome in the Backstroke as Vienna Woods roared back, in a somewhat "Beast-like" fashion, with a 50-40 win to take the overall lead by 4.

"Jetton" to the 1st place finish... see what I did there?

With Breaststroke up third and MVP trailing, the 8 and unders got the rally rolling early with a win by Lincoln Jetton for the boys and the second team sweep of the day coming from the girls (Natalie Crowther, Hayden Ward, and Evie Milito). The older swimmers followed the lead of the young ones and won the Breaststroke 48-42 to retake the overall lead.

Heading into Butterfly, MVP held the lead by a slim two point margin. Again the 8 and unders had some fantastic swims to kick things off, notably Bianca Henderson who cut over FOUR seconds off her best time to move up into third place and grab another crucial point for the team.

Note: Tried to put an action shot of Sam in here... but
he swam so fast for that Gator record they were all blurry.

Then Sam Bruce came in for the 9-10 Boys Fly and became the hero we were all looking for. Sam swam the 25m race faster than any Gator ever has before and set a new team record at 16.61 seconds. The rest of the team continued to rack up points, winning 6 of the 10 Fly events and taking the segment 48-42. That positioned the Gators in the lead heading into relays, with the score 184-176.

While an eight point lead like that may seem like a decent cushion, the Gator relays still had to take at least six of the 12 relay events. If VW was able to win seven, they would take the meet and defend their home turf, "The Woods."(Insert dramatic music here.)  First relay up was the 8 & under Boys... who were seeded six seconds behind The Woods. What did those Little Gators do? They heroed up, of course. Coach Paul changed the order of the swimmers in the relay and somehow that helped them shave 8 seconds off their time from the previous week to win... 8 seconds! Don't ask me. Coach Paul must be playing the role of the fairy godfather in this tale... sprinkling some magic dust on the swimmers to give them a hero boost.

Dust dealer/Fairy godfather.

Relay record photos are right up there with
Fly photo supremacy.

Then, the 13-14 Boys and 15-18 Boys each set new MVP records in their respective Medley Relays. Joe Humphreys, Jack Klopson, James Piland, and Donovan Kovalsky finished the 13-14 100m race in 56.69, cutting 1.6 seconds off the previous record from 2017. The older boys (John French, Charlie Ruppe, Cole Miller, and Clark Bayer) cut 2.5 seconds off the team record in the 200m Medley posting a new time of 1:56.03 besting the old mark which was set only two weeks ago at Crosspointe.

Okay, now this is where the fairy tale theme gets really weird. This is a TRUE story: Vienna Woods has a family of swimmers whose last name is Grimm. You can't make this up. Yes, that's right, we were swimming against the Brothers Grimm themselves. And two of them were in the 15-18 Boys relay... and actually defeated our team in that race despite our boys record setting performance. If this had been a horror story, this is the point where it all would have gone seriously wrong and our opponents would have rattled off a sweep of the last few relays to steal the victory.... but no. This is still our fairy tale, and it does have a happy ending.

Did we really just do that? Yeah, that was awesome. 

The 15-18 Girls rose up to become the final heroines and secured the victory. The Vienna Woods girls were the #1 ranked relay team in the division... and our girls were seeded FOUR seconds behind them. But like four Sleeping Beauties: Emily Makin, Taylor Makin, Gabby Greszler, and Sheridan Phalen were awakened by some of Paul's magic dust and proceeded to win the race while posting the new top time for Division 3. Truly magical!

Victory achieved, the people rejoiced. The Gators overcame the hex of the "The Woods" to win the meet with a final score of 224-196. All it took was three new team records, a few hero/heroine performances, and some magic dust.

13-14's in the House.

And how about the Age Group of the Week? I glossed over portions of their workmanlike performance earlier, but the 13-14 Boys really dominated in this one. Like Robin Hood and the Merry Men, they took points at will and brought them home to the team like golden treasure. These boys earned 38 out of a possible 41 points for the age group...that's right, 38 out of 41! To get to that lofty point total they took first and second in EVERY event (Back/Fly: James & Joe; Breast: Jack & Donovan), got that one sweep in Free (Donovan, Jack, Jack), and crushed the relay while setting the new team record. Nice swimming boys. Did you guys sneak some of that magic dust, too?

The complete meet results are available online and lots more pictures, too.

I do love when the story ends with the happily ever after. Congrats to all and Go Gators!

Four second time cuts on Fly pics, are REALLY the best swim pics.

Go Gators! 

Green and White! Fight! Fight!

History is littered with many tales epic showdowns between friends, countrymen, or even siblings. Early on in human history, as told in the Book of Genesis, there was Cain vs Abel. Fast forward a few thousand years, to the American Civil War, and it was the North vs the South, often referred to as a battle of "brother vs brother" because of the very real instances of brothers fighting for different sides. More recently, we had the "Harbowl" in Superbowl XLVII, a matchup of the Baltimore Ravens and San Francisco 49ers, two teams coached by brothers Jim and John Harbaugh. Blood may be thicker than water, but when battle lines are drawn, it's time to get it on. And so it is with the annual MVP Gator Green and White meet. Teammate vs Teammate, Friend vs Friend, Sibling vs Sibling.... No matter. It this one, there is no mercy offered, no quarter given. BATTLE!

Perhaps its not quite that intense, but it is a fun internal battle between two somewhat random halves of the team. We score this one a little different than the normal meet on the street. Instead of points based on the placement of finishes, swimmers earn points for setting a personal best time. No matter where any of the Gators times fall on the ladder, if they make an improvement at the Green and White meet, they earn a point for their team.

And earn points they did! We had quite a few swimmers rip off three swims with improvements on all of them (swimmers could swim three strokes if the third one was IM). These Gators all accomplished that feat:

Swimmer	Age	Group	Team
Jetton, Lincoln	8&U	Boys	Green
Beardsley, Jack	9-10	Boys	White
Prible, Evan	9-10	Boys	Green
Apostol, Hadley	9-10	Girls	White
Myers, Alexandra	9-10	Girls	Green
Crowther, Cassidy	11-12	Girls	Green
Litonjua, Abigail	11-12	Girls	Green
Piland, James	13-14	Boys	Green
French, John	15-18	Boys	Green
Krogh, Kenneth	15-18	Boys	Green
Adams, Abby	15-18	Girls	White

One interesting observation from the G&W meet: the flair
on the self-styled swim caps is great. However, the volume of
flair noticably drops with each age group. The 8U's have
amazingly styled caps... while the 15-18's pretty
much wore plain green and plain white caps. Flair on, 8u's!

We also award points for "first swim" if one of the swimmers swims a new stroke for the first time this season. Those points are included in the rest of these, so from here down, points came from both "first swim" and "best times." And here's the two point earners:

Green			White
Boyd, Stefen	8&U	Boys	Bohaty, Rowen	8&U	Boys
Jennings, Collin	8&U	Boys	Higgins, Finn	8&U	Boys
Mills, Connor	8&U	Boys	Keene, Spencer	8&U	Boys
Stephens, Neville	8&U	Boys	Barber, Kate	8&U	Girls
Bucca, Emma	8&U	Girls	Cummins, Paige	8&U	Girls
McCall, Tess	8&U	Girls	Henderson, Bianca	8&U	Girls
Miller, Elizabeth	8&U	Girls	Kellogg, Alex	8&U	Girls
Moore, Emily	8&U	Girls	Lafley, Caitlin	8&U	Girls
Simone, Ruth	8&U	Girls	Ward, Hayden	8&U	Girls
Hixson, Ian	9-10	Boys	Kurth, Christian	9-10	Boys
Kurth, Canon	9-10	Boys	Litonjua, Noah	9-10	Boys
Sarro, Anthony	9-10	Boys	Miller, Fionn	9-10	Boys
McCloskey, Josephine	9-10	Girls	Cowen, Josephine	9-10	Girls
Foerster, Jackson	11-12	Boys	Myers, Reese	9-10	Girls
Moore, Gavin	11-12	Boys	Paget, Cameron	9-10	Girls
Leach, Abigail	11-12	Girls	Mills, Joe	11-12	Boys
Simone, Margaret	11-12	Girls	North, Alexander	11-12	Boys
Moorman, Elizabeth	13-14	Girls	Adams, Amelia	11-12	Girls
Zaitsev, Katya	13-14	Girls	Colunga, Lila	11-12	Girls
Zaitsev, Andrei	15-18	Boys	Cowen, Samantha	11-12	Girls
Blondin, Olivia	15-18	Girls	Hixson, Nora	11-12	Girls
Greszler, Gabrielle	15-18	Girls	Humphreys, Jill	11-12	Girls
			Klopson, Jack	13-14	Boys
			Baker, Caroline	13-14	Girls
			Palmerino, Lily	13-14	Girls
			Zajac, Nicole	13-14	Girls
			Blondin, Parker	15-18	Boys
			Heck, TJ	15-18	Boys
			Greszler, Zoe	15-18	Girls
			Heck, Olivia	15-18	Girls
			Morales, Cecy	15-18	Girls
			Snodgrass, Cole	15-18	Girls

And of course, there were single point earners, too:

Green			White
Harding, Joseph	8&U	Boys	Banach, Boyd	8&U	Boys
Henderson, Desmond	8&U	Boys	Chapman, Eli	8&U	Boys
Shea, Peter	8&U	Boys	Eustis, Owen	8&U	Boys
Whitehead, Taft	8&U	Boys	Jennings, Cayden	8&U	Boys
Wiggers, Andrew	8&U	Boys	Nasir, William	8&U	Boys
Chapman, Addie	8&U	Girls	Prible, Owen	8&U	Boys
Crowther, Natalie	8&U	Girls	Sturchio, Mikey	8&U	Boys
Kellogg, Elizabeth	8&U	Girls	Suthar, Luca	8&U	Boys
Kreinar, Camille	8&U	Girls	Torgerson, Rhett	8&U	Boys
McCloskey, Paige	8&U	Girls	Driscoll, Margaret	8&U	Girls
Myers, Emma	8&U	Girls	McCloskey, Lila	8&U	Girls
Petz, Kate	8&U	Girls	Rudy, Lauren	8&U	Girls
Shea, Teddy	9-10	Boys	Craig, Evie	9-10	Girls
Gordon, Kiersten	9-10	Girls	Hildebrandt, Julia	9-10	Girls
Keyes, Alexi	9-10	Girls	Prible, Ella	9-10	Girls
Weyrauch, Hartley	9-10	Girls	Schulte, Heidi	9-10	Girls
Keller, Miriam	11-12	Girls	Starr, Anna	9-10	Girls
Morales, Monica	11-12	Girls	Baker, Andrew	15-18	Boys
Whitson, Liz	11-12	Girls	Dittman, Abby	15-18	Girls
Gordon, Mikayla	13-14	Girls
Phalen, Sheridan	15-18	Girls
Skopp-Cardillo, Juliana	15-18	Girls

Whew. That's a lot of personal best times and getting out of comfort zones by trying new strokes. So, you may be wondering how it all adds up? One of the tightest meets of the year!

White team... Represent!

In fact, factoring only the "best time" calculations it was a dead tie. BOTH teams ended up with 79 points.  I would expect nothing less from our Gators than for them to keep the competition at such a high level. But, I'm pretty sure the Harbaugh brothers would not have settled for a tie, so neither could the Gators. Rolling in those "first swim" points, the White team pulled out a narrow victory with a 13-11 advantage in that category, making the final result White 92 - Green 90. Great swimming to both teams!

Lots more pictures on the website here.

Go Gators!

Fly pics are the best swim pics.