On Saturday, we had our inaugural swim meet at the beautiful new Central Park Aquatic Center, and our kids really swam well – well enough to win 7 of the 8 meets in which we were engaged. The 8th meet was the competition between our boys and the boys from Fredericksburg Christian, and for the first time in since 2003 and only the 2nd time since 1996, a DAC opponent defeated our boys team.
We have no complaints in the loss because our boys swam very well – I was genuinely pleased with their effort, their spirit and their times. We usually win the close meets with the depth of our relays, but a close review of the results showed that that is the main way that FCS beat us. A first and third in a relay wins the event by a whopping 8 points. FCS has definitely made some great strides since last season.
Fredericksburg Christian is a well-coached and sportsmanlike team with whom we’ve shared a great relationship going back to the days when they were coached by the Jones, then Bob and Lisa Pleban, and now Nicole Kent. If we eventually had to lose to someone, I’m glad it was a team as kind to us as FCS – and I’m glad that Bob and Lisa were on deck helping to coach so they could participate in the victory.
We’ll see FCS again this season, so our streak of 17 straight boys DAC conference championships has not been broken yet, but they are certainly in the driver’s seat. Our girls on the other hand are looking like a 20th straight DAC Conference championship is in their future. The Seton girls swim team, since 1995, has never been beaten by a team in the DAC conference.
Here’s the way the meet scores turned out:
Boys
Fredericksburg Christian 158 Seton 127
Seton 143 Nansemond-Suffolk 121
Seton 193 St. Michael the Archangel 52
Seton 196 Wakefield Country Day 52
Girls
Seton 171 Nansemond-Suffolk 106
Seton 203 Fredericksburg Christian 52
Seton 207 St. Michael the Archangel 48
Seton 218 Wakefield Country Day 19
Top Performances
There were so many great swims, that it is difficult to single out just a few, but here’s an attempt to highlight some of the most outstanding performances that I saw:
- Kimberly Rector took an overall 1st and 2nd place in her individual events with two PRs and two State Championship cuts. Her 1st place finish came in 100 Breast, she clocked the fastest time on the team so far this season with a 1:16.45 – a .17 second PR. In 100 Free, she went 59.55 – a .07 second PR.
- Joe Kosten has long been a stalwart of our team. Before this season, he trained with a USA Club team, but this year, he is focused on practicing with us. So a combination of a reduced training regimen and the early time of the season makes his two big PRs pretty striking. In 100 Fly, Joe swam a lifetime best (by 1.18 seconds) of 1:02.42. Even he said, “where did that come from?” And in 100 Back, he swam a lifetime best by a huge 4.61 seconds. Normally a Breaststroker, it is great to see Joe blossom into a full-fledged four stroke swimmer for us.
- Sally Marrazzo had two PRs, both by exactly 1.22 seconds. Those PRs were good enough for 4th place overall in 100 Back and 5th place overall in 50 Free. Her 50 Free time of 28.58 was particularly noteworthy because it was the 5th fastest time swum on our team so far this season!
- Brian Koehr took two 2nd place overall finishes in his two individual events. In the 200 IM, he swam a lifetime best by 5.59 seconds. In 100 Breast, he held off a late push from an FCS swimmer to capture 2nd place by only .05 seconds. They were points that we really needed, and he got them for us.
- Claire Kenna took a 1st and a 3rd in two events that she doesn’t normally swim – and she did it with huge personal records. In 200 Free, Claire cut 7.34 seconds and showed me that she could really be good at this event – she won it handily and came very close to swimming a State qualifying time. And in 100 Back, an event that she normally would never swim, she showed tremendous improvement with a 3.73 second PR. I really emphasize 4 stroke swimming at Seton, and Claire can swim all 4 strokes well now. I was also very impressed with Claire’s breakout on her medley relay anchor leg.
- Anna Kenna had another big week of swimming with two 1st place finishes and two more big PRs. In the 500 Free, she cut 21.99 seconds to qualify for States with a 6:09.13. Anna also hit the State cut in 200 IM after a 8.90 second PR. As an 8th grader, Anna now has five (5) state cuts after only two meets.
- Mary Heim is working her way up my fastest times report with a 3.55 second PR in 50 Free and a 2.89 second PR in 100 Breast. Mary, only a 7th grader, is starting to swim times that are competitive for high school swimming. Just wait until she can score next year as an 8th
- Tommy Flook ventured into a couple new events for him and made the most of it. In the 500 Free, he cut 5.40 seconds and in the 200 Free, he cut 1.54 seconds. Those great swims got him 3rd place in each event.
- Dani Flook was really super in her 500 Free, taking 3rd place overall with a 15.53 second personal record. A quick look at her splits shows a remarkable consistency – it was a very fine swim. Dani also managed to cut 1.83 seconds from her 50 Free PR to swim the 6th fastest time on the team this season.
- Kalli Dalrymple just blew me away on Saturday – I’ve never seen her strokes look so good – and her times really showed it. In 100 Breaststroke, she cut 12.83 seconds from her previous best, in 50 Back leading off a medley relay she cut 3.73 seconds, and in 50 Free she cut a huge 2.79 seconds. If she keeps this up, this 8th grader is going to score a lot of points for us in the future!
- Leslie Chang is a junior in her first year swimming. When she first came to the team, she clearly did not have much experience in the water, but she has persevered in practice. The results are starting to show in the pool. Her times are not fast, but her heart sure is. It was so much fun to watch her drop 8.24 seconds in 50 Free, and it was even more fun to watch her not quit in that 100 Breaststroke until she made the whole 100 yards. Even her dive during the relay was much improved. I was also very pleased to see so many kids on the team cheering for her. Great work Leslie!
Another 65 Personal Records with only 53 Swimmers
For the second week in a row, we averaged well over one personal record per swimmer. This is particular impressive when you consider that 16 of those swimmers swam at least one event for the first time ever – meaning that they could not have gotten a PR no matter how well they swam. We should also consider that we missed two days of practice this past week because of snow.
Below is an enumeration of the rest of the great performances that made up this total:
- Joe Zapiain made some good progress on his quest to break 1:00 in 100 Free. His 1.68 second PR got him within .44 seconds of his goal.
- Jude Van de Voorde broke the :30 second barrier in 50 Free with a nearly unbelievable 2.85 second PR
- Madeline Snider continued to improve in 100 Free, this time by .27 seconds
- Julia Rowzie cut .30 seconds from her 50 Free PR.
- Meridyth Rosato was awesome in 100 Breast, cutting 2.68 seconds from her previous best.
- Martin Quinan told me that he wasn’t feeling well, but that didn’t stop him from swimming a 1.18 second PR in 50 Free!
- Andrew Quinan swam the 200 IM for us on Saturday and swam it 20.34 seconds faster than he ever has before. Then, in 100 Back, he swam a big 1.48 seconds than ever before breaking 1:20 for the first time. Nice work Andrew.
- Therese Pechie continues to drop time in massive chunks. How do you drop 3.36 seconds in 50 Free? Wow!
- Paul Pechie had a nice backstroke swim leading off a relay and lowering his PR by .60 seconds. Then in 100 Fly, he was able to cut .44 seconds.
- Cat Pechie is knocking on the door for a sub-30 second 50 Free with a 30.64 – a .79 second PR. She also cut a whopping 2.57 seconds from her 50 Back PR leading off a relay. It was great to watch Cat swim freestyle and see her pony tail pointing straight up and staying still.
- Meghan O’Malley was awesome in 100 Fly, lowering her PR by 4.81 seconds to go a competitive 1:21.31. Meghan also cut another .99 seconds off of her 100 Breast PR.
- Peter O’Donohue had a pair of Personal Records. In 50 Free, he cut 3.73 seconds and in 100 Breast, he cut .11 seconds.
- John O’Donohue cut .60 seconds off of his 50 Free PR leading off a relay. I must say that his stroke looked better than I’ve ever seen it.
- Emily Lowell turned my head with that 2.04 second PR in 100 Free!
- Colette Kosten, (spelled with only 1 “l” ;-)) really learned a lot over the past two weeks about swimming breaststroke – and it really showed in her 14.67 second PR!
- Tom Irving was great in the 100 Free, cutting 6.26 seconds from his PR. Tom, a great athlete, is really starting to get the hang of this swimming thing.
- Georgine Irving had a 1.58 second PR in 100 Breast and a 1.17 second PR in 50 Free. I like it!
- Bernadette Hassan listens really well in practice and it showed on Saturday with a 5.43 second PR in 100 Breast and a 5.34 second PR in 50 Free.
- Allison Given lowered her 50 Free PR by another .39 seconds.
- Matt Fioramonti cut .22 seconds from his 100 Free PR
- Mark Fioramonti has improved so much in Backstroke that I barely recognized him during the 100. How about a 14.62 second PR?! And Mark also cut a big 2.00 seconds from his 50 Free PR to go 28.34.
- Joe Fioramonti had three personal records including a 7.64 second PR in 100 Breast, a 1.78 second PR in 50 Back leading off a medley and a 1.72 second PR in 50 Free. Joe’s 50 Free is down to 31.24 – not bad for an 8th
- Patrick Dealey really gave me some swims to cheer about. His 7.99 second PR in 100 Back looked as good as I’ve seen from him, and his 4.85 second PR in 100 Fly was really an improvement.
- Ben Dealey somehow managed to lower his 50 Free PR by 2.47 seconds. That’s a lot Ben!
- Jillian Ceol wasn’t feeling very well, but that didn’t stop her from cutting her 50 Free time by another .18 seconds to 28.17. That time is the 4th fastest time swum on the team so far this season, and took 3rd place overall at our meet. It also qualified for National Catholics!
- David Catabui was great in that 100 Breast with his 6.30 second PR. David also cut 1.14 seconds in 50 Free – he is only .10 seconds from breaking that :40 second barrier!
- Ashley Cackett’s pre-meet predictions of disaster once again proved to be completely wrong, unless you call a 12.84 second PR in 200 IM and a .55 second PR in 100 Breast a disaster!
- Andrew Bishop looked very good in 100 Back with a .48 second PR.
- Edith Barvick had a nice swim in the 50 Free where she cut .36 seconds from her previous best time.
Other Great Performances
It was just the personal records that struck me this week:
- I’ve always emphasized that Seton swimmers can swim any stroke at any distance. This past weekend, we had a number of swimmers do quite well in their first attempts at some very tough events:
- The following kids swam 200 Free for the first time:
- Bridget O’Malley
- Madeline Snider
- Alex Ceol
- Brendan Santschi
- The following kids swam 200 IM for the first time:
- Vivian Zadnik
- Matthew Fioramonti
- The following kids swam 500 Free for the first time:
- Bridget O’Malley
- Seamus Koehr
- Martin Quinan (aren’t you glad you did it Martin?)
- Alex Ceol
- Ben Ceol’s Breaststroke looked much improved with a great glide to stretch out each stroke.
- Brendan Santschi’s strokes, particularly his freestyle, are really starting to look good.
- Coach Lowell was standing next to me during the Boys 200 IM and thought that it may have been our best event of the season. All three of our swimmers grossly over-achieved. Brian Koehr dropped 5.59 seconds, Andrew Quinan dropped 20.34 seconds, and Matthew Fioramonti swam a 2:44.73 in his first attempt ever at the event. Like I said above, we may have lost to FCS, but it wasn’t because we didn’t swim well.
- Mary Heim and Therese Pechie crushed their heat in the 50 Free. That was especially gratifying because the heats are seeded by time to help ensure that they are close.
- Alex Sinner just has some really beautiful strokes, particularly her butterfly and her backstroke. I’ll be using her to demonstrate butterfly as we work on it this week. In her first meet of the season, Alex also hit the State cuts in both of those events.
- Julia Irving, our team captain, is doing a great job of modeling what I am looking for in terms of effort and enthusiasm.
- Josh Miller was finally able to make it to a meet, and he sure made the most of it. His 28.93 in 50 Free jumped him up to the 10 fastest sprinter on our team – and this is his first year swimming. Man, I wish we had a time trial time on him because I’m sure that he has really improved since the beginning of the season.
- Alex Ceol was throwing up the night before the meet and still managed to break 7:00 in his first attempt at the 500 Free.
- Bryanna Farmer’s turn and finish never looked better during the 200 Free Relay.
- The following kids swam 200 Free for the first time:
Qualifiers for VISAA States and National Catholics
Unlike most of our other meets, during the Championship season, we have two big swim meets that require participants to achieve a qualifying time during this season in a non-time trial meet (that’s a change from the past). The National Catholic High School Championship is most likely moving back to Villanova University at the end of January and the State Championship is moving back to the Freedom Center the 3rd weekend in February.
After this weekend, here are the swimmers who have qualified individually so far. The new qualifiers are in bold – congratulations to Alex Sinner and Jillian Ceol plus the Boys “A” Medley Relay and the Girls “B” Medley Relay for joining the teams for the first time:
| Meet | Girls | Boys |
| National Catholics
(assuming the cuts have not changed) |
Kimberly Rector
· 200 IM · 100 Free · 100 Breast Claire Kenna · 50 Free · 100 Free Anna Kenna · 100 Fly · 100 Back · 50 Free · 200 IM Alex Sinner · 100 Fly · 100 Back Emily Heim · 100 Breast Jillian Ceol · 50 Free 200 Medley “A” |
|
| States | Kimberly Rector
· 200 IM · 500 Free · 100 Free · 100 Breast Claire Kenna · 50 Free · 100 Free Anna Kenna · 100 Fly · 100 Back · 50 Free · 200 IM · 500 Free Alex Sinner · 100 Fly · 100 Back Emily Heim · 100 Breast 200 Medley “A” 200 Medley “B” 200 Free Relay “A” |
200 Medley “A”
|
For relays at States, we are I am able to enter an “A” scoring relay and a qualifying “B” exhibition relay. Swimmers are qualified to swim on a relay if they have either qualified in an individual event or swum on the relay when it hit the qualifying time.
At the time that I submit our relay entries, I will enter the fastest two qualifying relays that I can, so that means that relay line-ups are subject to change up to the last moment depending on who is the fastest at that time. For now, I won’t even attempt to project who is traveling with us for relays yet – I will say that there are a lot of opportunities for swimmers on our team!
Thank you to Some New Parent Volunteers
It’s always great to see parents step up into volunteer roles – that’s how Seton Swimming runs so well. This week, we had two new parents that I’d like to highlight:
- Ed Ceol jumped in as our starter after taking a lot of his personal time to studying the officiating books and taking the certifying exam. Thanks so much for stepping in Ed!
- Kimberly Dalrymple jumped in to help our long-time pizza Mom, Mrs. Cathy Lowell. I was very happy to see it since Emily is a senior 😉
- Bill Dealey is making the effort to apprentice under Mr. Allen Sinner as the head scorer for our meets. Thanks Bill!
Final Notes
- We’ll continue our work on the short-axis strokes this week with a concentration on butterfly this coming week – so don’t miss practice!
- I’m working on scheduling pool time at Central Park for Captains practices over Christmas break. I’m targeting December 23rd, 26th and 30th at 10:00 a.m. for Varsity swimmers (non-exhibition) only. If you are in town, I will expect you to come. More info as I firm it up.
- On December 31st, we’ll have our annual Cystic-Fibrosis swim-a-thon. Thanks again to the Given family for running it again. I’ll pass on more information as I get it.
See you Monday morning,
Coach Jim Koehr