Girls Win Seton’s 10th VISAA Division II State Championship!

673 athletes from 53 Teams, music blasting, kids singing and dancing, costumes in a parade, hugs and tears from Seniors swimming for the last time, and Seton families gathering between sessions at our rented river house for Pasta and Chipotle feasts.  Most importantly, we saw loads of huge PR performances from our Swimmers and Divers and a Girl’s VISAA Division II State Championship!  These were just a few of the highlights from the 2023 VISAA State Swim and Dive Championship at the beautiful new Liberty University Natatorium in Lynchburg, VA.

Last weekend (Feb 17-18, 2023), we took 26 swimmers and divers and a like number of parents into this incredibly fast meet – and the swimming I saw from our team was beyond my expectations.  Our kids always seem to excel on the big stage every year at States, but even I was amazed by the results.  We had huge drops from a number of swimmers, including a Boy’s relay that dropped almost six (6) seconds and several swimmers that had multi-second drops in their individual events and relay splits.

Seton wasn’t officially a co-host for the meet, but I was so proud to watch Bill Dealey managing all the timing and scoring systems, Charles Seltman who served as one of Deck Referees, and David Wilson who served as a Stroke and Turn Judge.  Bill Dealey was justifiably honored for his eight (8) years of service at the VISAA State Championship during the opening of Saturday night’s Finals.  The meet required about 125 volunteers, and little Seton was able to fill many of the key roles.  Seton shined last weekend, both in and out of the water.

It was an incredibly fun trip for our team.  For many years now, we have been renting a house off AirBnB so that we had a place to gather between sessions for comradery and team meals.  This time, we had a comfortable house right on the James River – just beautiful!  The relatively warm February day on Thursday night allowed us all to enjoy each other’s company for a wonderful team meeting where the Captains recognized each member of the State team and all the new members got to sign “the cone”.

“The Cone” was an old traffic cone that Shane Koehr took from the Seton parking lot for use as a megaphone at the meet several years ago.  Like all good thieves, he signed his name to his booty, and the next thing I knew, everyone wanted to sign their name on The Cone too.  The best traditions bubble up organically, and this is a great example.  Even Coach Ashley Keapproth was honored by the Captains with a turn with the sharpie marker.

Thank you, Captains, for your great leadership this weekend and this entire season!

Thanks to the leadership of Mrs. Katie Condon, with a team of fellow Moms including Mrs. Brox and Mrs. Nguyen, we had wonderful team meals that didn’t require long waits for restaurants to serve drinks and take orders.  I’m quite sure no other team was eating like we were at States this year!

A Win for the VISAA Too

Back in 2018, I was serving my 14^th year as the Secretary of the VISAA Executive Committee.  Liberty University had just opened the beautiful new Natatorium that we experienced this past weekend, and as a past 7-time host or co-host of the State Championship, I was excited to see the VISAA host the meet there.

Not everyone agreed.  Some member schools were saying that they would boycott the meet if we had it at Liberty.  When they protested to the VISAA Board, the VISAA forbade our committee from hosting the meet there.  Apparently, diversity and inclusion didn’t include schools that take a biblical view of sexual morality – even though a significant percentage of VISAA schools are Catholic or Christian.

The core mission of the VISAA involves ensuring fair and healthy competition between teams from the very diverse VISAA membership.  I made the point at the time that the VISAA should not expand their role to moral arbiter on the contentious social issues of the day, particularly since that undermines mutual respect among that diverse membership.

I decided that I could not just let this decision stand without a fight.  With the help of several others, including the Directors of some Christian schools (including Mrs. Carroll at Seton and Dr. Vanderpoel at Trinity Christian), and the VISAA Swimming President, we sent the following letters to the VISAA Board of Directors:

Letter from Mrs. Carroll to VISAA on Liberty University-Aug15 18

Letter from Dr. Vanderpoel to VISAA on Liberty University-Sep4,18

Letter to VISAA Executive Board from Williamsburg Christian Academy

VISAA Reconsider Liberty-Greg Guldin-Sep7,18

I also publicly resigned my very visible position on the VISAA Swimming Board.

At the time, we had lost the battle – but we eventually won the war.  Ultimately, I think reasonable people concluded that it was not in the best interest of the VISAA to allow member schools to push any political agenda or ideology, particularly one that discriminates against traditional Christian values that are so well represented in the membership.  The VISAA Board ultimately agreed that the VISAA position on the contentious social issues of the day should be that the VISAA should not be taking positions.

Five (5) years later, there seemed to be only limited outward residual animosity, and as I predicted in 2018, no schools boycotted the event once it was decided to hold it at Liberty University.

So, this past weekend was also a win the VISAA and for the advancement of the VISAA mission.  Seton can be justifiably proud to have been a part of that.

Scoring

This meet was unbelievably fast.  Imagine a Boys 400 Free Relay where the slow guy went 48.17!  Of the 24 total events, there were four (4) new Meet Records.  With only the top 16 finishers getting points, it is very hard to score at all in a meet like this.  The result is a premium on the fastest swimmers, particularly in the Division II.

Another aspect of the Meet that was a lot of fun to watch was the Girl’s and Boy’s competition for the Division II title.  Both championships came down to the final 400 Free Relay.  The noise during those races was deafening!

Recall that our State Championship is scored like one big championship meet.  The team with the highest point total is declared the “Overall” State Champion, and the Division II team with the most points is declared the “Division II” State Champion.  That scoring system generated a great deal of fun for the smaller schools like Seton.

Here’s an excerpt from the final scoring of a very exciting meet -the Division II schools in bold:

Girls

1. Collegiate School                 367.5
2. St. Catherine’s School         249
3. Norfolk Academy                 196
4. St. Paul VI                               176
5. Trinity Episcopal                   160
6. St. Anne’s-Belfield                130.5
7. The Madeira School               98
8. Trinity Christian                      92
9. Seton School                           88 – Division II Champ
10. Potomac School                      87
11. Bishop O’Connell                    84
12. St. Stephen’s/St. Agnes          80
13. Virginia Episcopal                  72 – Division II Runner-up
14. Veritas                                       65 – Division II
15. Peninsula Catholic                  54 – Division II
16. St. John Paul the Great           52
17. Oakcrest                                    41
18. Cape Henry Collegiate            38 – Division II

Boys

1. St. Christopher’s School          322
2. Woodberry Forest School       194.5
3. Norfolk Academy                     188
4. St. Paul VI                                   168.5
5. Collegiate School                      162
6. Bishop O’Connell                      134
7. St. Anne’s-Belfield                    128
8. Trinity Episcopal                       123
9. Potomac School                        118
10. Flint Hill School                         116
11. Cape Henry Collegiate              79
12. The Covenant School               63 – Division II Champ
13. Virginia Episcopal                     54 – Division II Runner-up
14. Peninsula Catholic                     53 – Division II
15. Seton School                              53 – Division II
16. Trinity Christian                         52 – Division II

The Story of the Girl’s Victory

I came into the meet expecting the main competition for our girls to be Cape Henry Collegiate, Peninsula Catholic, and Virginia Episcopal (VES).  Because Cape Henry and Peninsula Catholic didn’t come to the Division II Invitational, I really didn’t know how they would perform, but I felt reasonably confident based on the results posted on SwimCloud.  We had seen VES at the Division II Invitational, so I felt pretty good that we could beat them on the power of our relays.

As it turned out, Cape Henry underperformed against their seeds, but Peninsula Catholic and Virginia Episcopal overperformed.  As I predicted, it came down to our relays, and in this case, it came down to the last relay.

We started off on Friday with a strong performance from our Girls 200 Medley Relay of Ariana Aldeguer (8), Clara Condon (SO), Stella Paradise (JR), and Maggie Gibbons (JR).  They came into the meet seeded 7^th at 1:53.81 and came out of the meet scoring in 5^th with a 1:51.63.  Ariana led-off with a .54 second PR 27.85 backstroke split followed by Clara’s lifetime-best 30.83 breaststroke split, Stella’s lifetime-best 27.40 butterfly split, and Maggie’s near-season-best 25.55.  That result was worth 28 points alone!

Next up for Seton was young Ariana Aldeguer (8) in the 200 IM.  She entered the meet seeded an incredible 5^th at 2:11.55, and even though she dropped to 2:08.57, the competition was so stiff, she simply held her seed – but that was another crucial 14-points.

Our scoring on Friday ended with a Clara Condon (SO) dropping a total of .96 seconds in 100 Fly between Prelims and Finals to score in 10^th place and score another 7 points.   As an indication of how fast things were getting, Clara’s PR by nearly a whole second just held her seed.

We went back to the house on Friday night with a 4-point lead over Virginia Episcopal and a 14-point lead over Peninsula Catholic, 49-45-35.  Cape Henry failed to make it to Finals in their Medley Relay, so they had just 4-points.

We came back Saturday knowing that we had four (4) big chances to score with two (2) of those chances being in the all-important relays.

The first opportunity of the day was probably the most remarkable swim of the weekend – Ariana Aldeguer (8) in the 500 Free.  Ariana entered the meet seeded 7^th at 5:14.65.  In the Prelims, she dropped to 5:09.42 to qualify in 5^th, and in the Finals, she held her seed after dropping again, to 5:08.13.  That was another 14-points meaning that Ariana single-handedly scored 28 of our team’s 88-points, not counting her contribution to our relays.

A few amazing things about Ariana’s time in the 500.  First, was the consistency of the splits.  After going out on the first 50 in 28.46, she held :31s for the next eight (8) 50s in a row.  30.61, 31.11, 31.29, 31.14, 31.30, 30.96, 31.48, 31.26.  She brought it home in 30.52 after giving all she had – Ariana left nothing in the pool.  And the result was the 2^nd amazing thing about the swim.  Ariana is now within 1.15 seconds of the oldest team record on the Board – Katie Shipko’s 1999 record of 5:06.98.

Next, it was time for Ariana’s older teammates to score in the Girls 200 Free Relay.  Our relay of Maggie Gibbons (JR), Elodie Brox (SO), Stella Paradise (JR), and Mary Pennefather (SR) scored 8-points with their 13^th place finish.  Their excellent performance relied heavily on outstanding splits by Elodie Brox (SO), 25.77, and Stella Paradise (JR), 25.64.

Going into Clara Condon’s (SO) breaststroke, we were leading Virginia Episcopal by 10-points.  After Prelims of 100 Breaststroke, Clara was seeded 16^th for Finals, but VES had two girls seeded ahead of Clara in 9^th and 12^th.  Fortunately, Clara did her job for the team in the Finals and jumped up to 14^th.  With the VES girls scoring in 12^th and 13^th, Seton came into the final 400 Free Relay ahead of 2^nd place Virginia Episcopal School by only 4-points.

Going into the Consolation Finals for the last event on Saturday night, the Girls 400 Free Relay, the energy in the natatorium was palpable.  We were seeded 10^th and VES was seeded 16^th.   All we had to do was to beat VES in this heat, and we were champions.

To add to the fun though, we were exactly tied with Trinity Christian (whose girls are now in Division I), and they were seeded 9^th.  That set up the rematch from the VCAC Regular Season Championship last January 7^th with Trinity Christian’s 400 Free Relay in lane 4 and Seton’s in lane 5.

I explained the situation to the girls right before the race:  beat Virginia Episcopal and we are the Division II champions – but I wanted more than that.  I wanted redemption from January 7^th.  With Trinity’s Allie Witdoeckt (JR), who won the State Championship in 100 Free, on the anchor, the coaches figured that we needed to give our anchor, Maggie Gibbons (JR), a 7.5 second lead to have a good chance.

Ariana Aldeguer (8) led off with a PR 54.55 to give us a 2.47 second lead.  The Stella Paradise (JR) extended the lead to 4.00 seconds followed by Mary Pennefather (SR) who extended the lead even further, to 4.93 seconds.  Really good, but not enough.  Even Maggie Gibbons’ (JR) amazing 56.91 split (.89 seconds faster than her previous best split) was not enough to hold off Allie Witdoeckt (SR) who split an amazing 50.96.  What can you do with that?

The result was Seton scoring in 10^th place behind Trinity Christian – but ahead of Virginia Episcopal who scored in 16^th place 8.67 seconds behind a tremendous Seton time of 3:46.32.  Our best 400 Free Relay coming into the meet was 3:50.91.

The Seton girls were champions, and the tears flowed behind the blocks.  Being a part of that celebration behind the blocks will always be one of my fondest memories coaching this team.

The Boys Were a Story of Meekness in Action

The Boys competition also came down the final 400 Free Relay, but it was also a story of power of meekness and the success of our up-and-coming Boys Dive team.

Our Boys 200 Medley Relay of Connor Koehr (SO), JJ Brox (SR), Joe Wilson (SR), and Lionel Martinez (8) overachieved right out of the gate.  They entered the meet seeded 14^th with a 1:45.49.  In Prelims, they dropped to 12^th with a 1:44.63, and Finals, they dropped again to 11^th with a 1:43.92.  Much of the time improvement came from Connor Koehr in Backstroke and JJ Brox in Breaststroke.

With most of our scoring swims slated for Saturday, the only other key swim for us on Friday was Lionel Martinez’s (8) 200 IM where he scored 3-points with a 14^th place finish.  I could tell Lionel was disappointed with the result, but you must remember that there were only four (4) total 8^th grade boys who were talented enough to make it into the Finals, and Lionel was one of those.  Because boys mature later, older boys are much stronger than their middle school counterparts.  On the girl’s side, it is much more common for younger girls to compete with the older girls.

We ended Friday’s sessions with only 15-points, but our program was back-end loaded.  With Diving and two (2) relays on Saturday, it was the next day where we expected to get the points to be competitive to win.

Coach Ashley Keapproth must have been incredibly proud of her Male Divers.  The competition was for 11 total dives with a first cut after 5-dives (Prelims) and a 2^nd cut after 8-dives (Semi-Finals).

After Prelims on Saturday afternoon, Connor Koehr (SO) was hot.  With a 5-dive score of 178.85, a score very close to his 6-dive Personal Record, he was sitting in 3^rd place.  Mick Fioramonti (JR) was also performing exceptionally well, entering the semi-finals in 8^th place followed by JJ Brox (SR) in 12^th and Gus Kohlhaas (SO) and Jacob Oswald (SO) tied for 17^th.  Max Gonzalez (SO) finished in 22^nd place.

In the semi-finals, the competition tightened up around 3^rd through 6^th with Connor dropping to 5^th, just 2-points out of 3^rd place.  Mick held his 8^th place position, and JJ made it past the final cut to 16 places in 15^th.  Gus and Jacob finished in 19^th and 20^th, respectively.

One relatively new feature of the State Diving competition is that the final 3-dives are done at night as the first event of the Swimming Finals.   With hundreds of swimmers sitting on the deck around the diving well and with all the spectators in the stands, Connor, Mick, and JJ competed in their final three (3) dives.

Connor finished his program with a forward 2 and a half in the tuck position with a strong enough score to hold 5^th place.  Mick really seemed to shine under the bright lights.  His Reverse Dive in the tuck position and his Inward Dive in the tuck position scored well enough to move him up to 7^th.  And JJ finished with 7.0s on his final Forward Dive in the tuck position to finish in 15^th place.

We knew that Diving would be the key to our success, and that was certainly the case.  Of the 53 total points we scored as a team, the Divers scored 28 of them or slightly more than half.  That left just the Boys 200 and 400 Free Relays.

The Boys 200 Free Relay has been a story of meekness in action all season long.  I’ve been posting the top splits for 50 Freestyle for a number of weeks now, and the rankings have been very fluid.  The boys have been pushing each other to get faster – and boy have they gotten faster.  To show you what I mean, let’s compare the boys fastest 50 Free splits from after the Homecoming Meet and now.

• Right before Christmas, we had just one (1) boy under :23, the same one as the only boy under :24, and just four (4) under :25.
• Going into States, we had one (1) boy under :23, three (3) boys under :24 and seven (7) under :25.
• And today, we have three (3) under :23, four (4) under :24, and eight (8) under :25.

I was so pleased with the way these boys competed with each other – it was a true demonstration of the virtue of meekness.  They all competed in a way that made their competitor – and our team – better.  And the fluidity in the rankings played a factor in our line-ups for the 200 Free Relay at States.

Our Boys 200 Free Relay of Lionel Martinez (8), Michael Brox (SO), Liam Halisky (SO), and Joe Wilson (SR) entered the meet with our best relay time for the season of 1:38.58 – that had us seeded out of the top-16 in 23^rd place.  But their swim in Prelims was phenomenal.  All the Boys rocked their lifetime-best splits:   Lionel led off with a PR 23.40, Michael Brox (SO) with a 23.22, Joe Wilson (SR) with a 22.91 split, and Liam Halisky (SO) with a 23.87.  Their 1:33.40 was a drop of 5.18 seconds and got them into the Consolation Finals seeded 12^th!

Unfortunately for Liam though, JJ Brox (SR) anchored the B Relay at an incredible 23.64.  That split, a lifetime-best by .56 seconds, put him back on the “A” Relay for Saturday night Finals.  I imagine that it was particularly satisfying for JJ since just the week before at VCAC Champs, his brother Michael had knocked him down from the “A” Relay going into States.

In the Finals, our Boys 200 Free Relay, this time with JJ Brox swimming the 3^rd leg, dropped again, to 1:32.89.  Lionel dropped to 23.16, Michael dropped to 22.77 (OMG!), and Joe dropped to 22.81.  With that drop, they were able to hold their 12^th seed and take the crucial 10 team points.

That left only the 400 Free Relay for our Boys team.

Coming into that relay, Virginia Episcopal was again in the lead with 54 points, but they didn’t have an entry in the 400 Free Relay.   Tied for 2^nd and 3^rd in Division II was The Covenant School and Seton School with 53 points, followed by Trinity Christian with 44 points.   Unlike the Trinity Christian girls, the Trinity boys were still Division II.

So, the stage was set:  lose to Trinity Christian by less than four (4) places and beat Covenant, and we could be champions.  I could not have done the lane assignments for the Consolation Finals any better than fate did it, because Seton, Covenant, and Trinity were in lanes 1, 2, and 3 – right next to each other.

As cool as the opportunity sounded though, it was going to be a very difficult opportunity to maximize.  Even though our Boys 400 Free Relay of Lionel Martinez (8), Connor Koehr (SO), Michael Brox (SO), and Joe Wilson (SR) swam really well in Prelims – their 3:30.85 was 1.42 seconds faster than our team Personal Record, and Michael Brox’s 52.63 and Joe Wilson’s 52.11 were particularly good – they were still in a pretty big hole going into the Finals.

The Covenant School was seeded 13^th at 3:26.82 and Trinity Christian School was seeded 11^th at 3:24.55.  Both of these seed times were quite a bit faster than our 3:30.85 so we were going to have to take some risks to try to win.

Lionel led off with a .40 second PR 50.72, Connor split 54.11, and them Michael split an incredible 51.51!  Joe anchored with a lifetime-best split of 52.47, but then the bad news came.  Head Referee Bill Gill handed me the yellow slip with Charles Seltman’s signature on the bottom.  Disqualified for an early take-off.

I was not upset.  I understand risk.  Beating Covenant was a total long shot, especially with Will Charlton on the back end of their relay, so the only way it was going to happen was to take a risk.  Yes, we could have been the State runner-up had we not DQ’d, but I’d take the risk to go for the win 100 out of 100 times.

Incredibly, we finished with 53 total points, tied for 3^rd place in Division II.  The State Runner-up, Virginia Episcopal, had 54-points – only a single point more – and the winner, The Covenant School, had only 63-points.

Saying we lost on this last relay is like saying that the Philadelphia Eagles lost on a last-minute holding call.  There were loads of places we could have gotten 10 more points.  Winning on the Boys side was always a long shot.  I’m very proud of the boys who almost pulled it off.

Other Great Performances and Personal Records

I’ve spent a few thousand words describing the most impactful swims for Seton in the State Championship competition, but we had a number of other great performances too.  Our total of 30 additional Personal Records brings our final season total to 1,130 Personal Records!

That is simply remarkable – by far the highest total is Seton Swimming history.  Here are the great performances that I have not previously mentioned:

• Joseph Borneman (SO) rocked his final chance of the season a flat-start 50 Free with a .55 second PR 24.82. His 100 Free split in the “B” 400 Free Relay was smoking – a 54.69 – a lifetime-best split by 1.29 seconds.  He also smoked his 50 Free split in “B” 200 Free Relay – a 24.19 – a lifetime-best split by .93 seconds!
• Elodie Brox (SO) came within a spit of breaking the 1:00 barrier in 100 Free after dropping .97 seconds leading off a 400 Free Relay.
• JJ Brox (SR) improved his 11-dive PR by 37.50 points. He also finished his career in 100 Breaststroke with a 1:06.18, a new PR by .24 seconds.
• Clara Condon’s (SO) swim in 100 Fly Finals was a .17 second PR. She also anchored the 200 Free Relay with a 50 Free split of 25.99 that was so fast that it almost bumped her up to the “A” Relay for Finals.
• Haley Fifield (SO) beat her previous best 50 Backstroke time leading off a relay by .45 seconds. She also had a great split in the 400 Free Relay, splitting 1:01.45 in 100 Free.  That was .64 seconds faster than ever before.
• Mick Fioramonti (JR) not only beat his previous best 11-dive score by 34.05 points, he also dropped .07 seconds in 50 Back leading off a relay, and .12 seconds in 50 Free.
• Anastasia Garvey (FR) split 30.04 in 50 Fly in a medley relay.
• Maggie Gibbons (JR) cut another .06 seconds from her flat-start 50 Free PR.
• Liam Halisky (SO) not only split a lifetime best in 50 Free during a relay, he crushed his lifetime best split in 100 Free during the “B” 400 Free Relay. How about a 55.51!?  His previous fastest was 57.68.
• David Hudson (JR) got down to 24.66 in a flat-start 50 Free, and improvement of .23 seconds. His 100 Free split in the “B” 400 Free Relay was an incredible 55.31, 1.79 seconds faster than ever before.   And his 50 Fly split in the medley relay was an equally incredible 25.92, .52 seconds faster than ever before.
• Connor Koehr (SO) came within 5-points of breaking the team record for 6-dives while on his way to a 33.30-point PR for 11-dives. He also cut .09 seconds in 50 Back leading off a relay and .68 seconds in 100 Back.  His 100 Back came within .42 seconds of breaking the 1:00 barrier.
• Gus Kohlhaas (SO) beat his 11-dive PR by 11.10 points even though he was only allowed to do 8-dives after the 2^nd
• Kateri Mantooth (SR) ended her career in style with a .36 second PR in a flat-start 50 Free. And her 100 Free split was particularly strong, a 1:01.55 versus a previous lifetime-best split of 1:02.52.
• Lionel Martinez (8) hit some big PRs leading off the 200 Free and 400 Free Relays. His 23.16 in 50 Free and 50.72 in 100 Free with both PRs, by .49 seconds and .50 seconds, respectively.
• Andrew Nguyen (SO) swam a lifetime-best 50 Breaststroke split in a medley relay by .06 seconds. I think Drew gained some valuable experience participating in such a fast meet.  Now that he knows what to expect, I’m sure he will be in a better position to swim even faster the next time.
• Jacqueline Oswald (SR) swam well in her 50 Free, going a near-season-best 29.16.
• Stella Paradise (JR) split a very fast 27.40 in 50 Fly during the medley relay, a split that was .51 seconds faster than ever before.
• Mary Pennefather (SR) had great swims in all three (3) of the relays in which she swam, particularly in the 200 Free and 400 Free Relays.
• Joe Wilson (SR) finished his career sprinting the 50 Free with a 23.22, a time that was .36 seconds faster than ever before.
• Philomena Kay (8), Jacob Oswald (SO), Max Gonzalez, (SO), Rose Waldron (SO) and Elizabeth Francis (SO) had a great experience in their first really big-time meet. I’m sure it will benefit them greatly when they return to competition next season.

Next Season, Conference Champions again?

We are only graduating eleven (11) seniors, and we currently have 58 swimmers who are 9^th grade and below.  Our sophomore class alone has 25 swimmers!  It is hard to imagine that we won’t be stronger next season than we have been this season.

Based on our performance at the Conference and State Championships this year, I am clearly excited about our chances to win both the Boys and Girls Conference Championship next season, and maybe repeat as Girls State Champion.  With the power of our Boy’s relays and the improvement we are seeing with the male divers, our Boys may be able to win the State Championship too.

We also need to have another great recruiting year inside the school.  There are plenty of strong swimmers that have either never been on the team or would be great to have back on the team.  Seton Swimming is a great community within Seton School.  Let’s use the off-season to expand that community for next year.

Awards are All That Remain

Our Swimming Awards are set for Sunday, March 5^th at Renaissance Montessori School starting at 2:00 p.m.  Thank you to Mrs. Condon, Mrs. Dalrymple, Mrs. Blanchette, and Mrs. Morales for taking charge of the planning for the event.  I’m traveling a lot this week and next so I’m not exactly sure what is planned beyond that, but I think it may involve delicious treats.

Final Thoughts

It certainly has been another great season for Seton, and I’m quite encouraged by our future here.  I’ve written in past blogs of the great joy that comes from achieving things that you never thought possible by working hard, believing in yourself and taking a risk.  I saw countless examples of that this season, and I’ll tell you true – you swimmers are not the only one who get great joy out of it.

At the end of recent seasons, I also spent a lot of time writing about our GEMS: Gratitude, Excellence, Meekness and Sacrifice.  Those are the values that have powered our team toward a commonality of purpose and a mutual support for one another to do always do our best with the gifts that God has provided.  I feel particularly good about the fact that we were able to tap into that power this year – and the results speak for themselves.

So even though the season it over, we are still a team.  I look forward to seeing you all support each other for the rest of the year outside the water the way our State Team supported each other this past weekend in the water.

Coach Jim Koehr