Before the meet, I asked all of the kids, “Who was born after 1996?”. There were a lot of hands. Well, before two years ago, that was the last time the Seton boys lost a regular season conference meet. And our girl’s team, founded in 1995, has never lost a conference meet – that streak almost ended on Saturday.
We knew that Fredericksburg Christian’s boys were going to be a challenge for us, but our girls really got a wake-up call from a new and well coached Trinity Christian team. When our Girls “A” medley relay got disqualified, it didn’t really occur to me that I should question it, but that DQ, along with the fact that we were missing two of our top girl swimmers, conspired to make the meet much closer than the 40 point victory our girls got over TCS on December 4th. I think we can agree that it doesn’t get any closer than a tie! Both the boys and the girls meet literally came down the to the last event.
The good news for the Girls is that DAC rules dictate that the conference championship is determined by the first two meetings of each team. With one win and one tie – and no one else in the conference particularly competitive with us – it looks like we have pretty much sealed our 22nd straight conference championship. With the number of seniors graduating this year, I can already see that we are going to have to work very hard to get that 23rd championship.
On the boy’s side, we still have some work to do. With a 4 point victory, we certainly control our own destiny for the conference championship, but we will have to beat FCS one more time – and I don’t expect that to be easy.
We knew in advance that FCS had three boys who are USA Swimmers and who were all faster than the fastest boy on our team, so how were we able to flip the results in our favor? I don’t think it is an overstatement to say that, among other things that made the difference, the time Cat Rogers spent coaching our breaststrokers this past week was one key to our victory. See the analysis below for an explanation of why.
One key advantage we have is our depth. A high school dual meet scores 1st through 7th place with 8-6-5-4-3-2-1 points. So if a team like FCS takes 1st, 3rd and 7th, we actually win the event 15-14 – even though they took 2 of the top 3 places. So that is why the swimmers in Coach Ross’ and Coach Zadnik’s lanes matter so much. Yes, it is great to have the Claire Kenna’s and the Emily Heim’s, but the real difference comes with the Alex Ceol’s, Will Arnold’s, Grant Mantooth’s, Caroline Griffin’s, Martin Quinan’s, Julia Rowzie’s and Reilly Cuccinelli’s and so many others.
The other key advantage is that we are improving faster than they are. For the meet, we had an almost unbelievable 88 total personal records for our entire team, but another really interesting statistic is PRs among boys scoring swimmers in individual events. In a very close meet, we had 22 and they had 19 – and that was all the difference.
Spiritual Bouquets for the Curley, Hassan and Rowzie Families
Team Captain Meghan O’Malley led an effort at practice last week to create spiritual bouquets for the three families in our community that are fighting with illnesses due to cancer. Her idea was for the entire team to offer their suffering during our dry-land workouts for the repose of the soul of Mr. Curley and for the recovery of Mrs. Hassan and Mrs. Rowzie.
After the other captains recorded results for each of their Dryland groups, Meghan created posters that were signed by every member of the team. On each poster, she showed the sacrifices made by our team as a whole:
- 1,183 Squats
- 1 hour 55 minutes of Quadrupeds
- 3,436 Hitchhikers
- 3,425 Russian Twists
- 980 Pushups
- 2 hours 2 minutes of Planks
It is a wonderful teaching our Church that we can offer our suffering for the good of another. Nice work Meghan, and her fellow Captains, for reminding us all of a very important way that we can help these families in our community.
Final Scores
As you may recall from previous blogs where I explained how high meets were scored – basically, we all swam at the same time, but every team was scored against every other team separately, so there was actually a grand total of 110 different meets going on between the 11 different teams.
Of those meets, we were involved in 10 of them for our girls and boys teams. Our beat all comers except a very strong Battlefield High School and our Girls beat everyone except for Battlefield and VISAA Division I school Flint Hill, plus of course the tie with Trinity Christian.
Here’s the way the meet scores turned out for us at Seton:
Boys
Battlefield 190 Seton 96
Seton 145 Fredericksburg Christian 141
Seton 158.5 John Paul the Great 113.5
Seton 165 Trinity Christian 110
Seton 212.5 St. Michael the Archangel 65.5
Seton 201 Highland 61
Seton 216 Flint Hill 59
Seton 202 Wakefield 45
Seton 219 Wakefield Country Day 24
Seton 229 Ad Fontes 0
Girls
Battlefield 183 Seton 101
Flint Hill 148 Seton 138
Seton 139 Trinity Christian 139
Seton 159 John Paul the Great 114
Seton 218 St. Michael the Archangel 53
Seton 207 Fredericksburg Christian 66
Seton 197 Highland 69
Seton 212 Flint Hill 62
Seton 216 Wakefield 28
Seton 219 Wakefield Country Day 23
Seton 216 Holy Family 14
Seton 224 Ad Fontes 0
How Many Ways Could It Have Ended Up Differently for Our Boys?
When you look at the meet event by event, you really understand how close this all was between the Boys for Seton and Fredericksburg Christian. Can you believe that this meet came down to only .07 seconds? See below for why.
Prior to the meet, I told the kids that the winner was going to be the team that swam the most Personal Records – and we were going to be that team. As the meet progressed, it was amazing how true that prediction became.
Here’s an event by event account of how the just a few PRs made all of the difference. Note how many different ways we could have lost the 4 points that made up our margin of victory. (Recall that Relays are scored 1st thru 3rd with 10-5-3 points and Individual events are scored 1st thru 7th with 8-6-5-4-3-2-1 points):
200 Medley Relay
- We knew going in that the top FCS swimmers were faster than our top swimmers and that we were going to have to rely on depth.
- Top swimmers win relays, but our two relays swam season-best times to take 2nd and 3rd so we only lost the event by 2 points.
- Matthew Fioramonti, Andrew Quinan, Will Arnold and Cris Salas cut .84 seconds off of the best medley relay time we’d put together this season to go 1:53.60 and hit the State cut. Cris Salas split 24.58!
- Our “B” relay lowered their best time by 4.77 seconds and also hit the State cut. Very nice work for David Flook, Martin Quinan Alex Ceol and Kevin Geiran. Alex Ceol had a tremendous 27.54 split and Kevin Geiran keeps moving his way up the depth chart with a 25.67 split!
| Seton | FCS | |
| Event Score | 8 | 10 |
| Meet Score | 8 | 10 |
200 Freestyle
- This first individual event was a perfect example of how depth could win this meet for us.
- FCS got 1st, 3rd and 7th and we won the event.
- The standout performance came from Andrew Quinan who was seeded third, but after cutting 5.15 seconds from his PR to beat one of FCS’ top swimmers and claim the 2nd place points! That was 2 of the 6 extra points we’d need for victory.
- We also had tremendous swims from Dominic Wittlinger and Brendan Santschi who both swam PRs, by 3.66 seconds and by 1.52 seconds, respectively.
| Seton | FCS | |
| Event Score | 16 | 13 |
| Meet Score | 24 | 23 |
200 Individual Medley
- We got beaten pretty badly in this event, but not because we swam poorly – FCS loaded up this event with two of their top seniors, one of whom swam a 13.60 second PR.
- FCS took both 1st and 2nd – that’s impossible to overcome.
- But David Flook swam well to take 3rd, Alex Ceol swam a 3.79 second PR to take 4th and Seamus Koehr swam an 8.28 second PR to take 6th. Some pretty good swimming for sure. Seamus’ breaststroke leg was particularly impressive.
| Seton | FCS | |
| Event Score | 11 | 18 |
| Meet Score | 35 | 41 |
50 Free
- By loading up the 200 IM, FCS left themselves vulnerable in the 50 Free and boy did we take advantage of that.
- Grant Mantooth swam the race of his life, going 25.00 and taking 1st place after dropping another .38 seconds from his PR. Grant is now a half of a second from States!
- Cris Salas also swam a lifetime best, by .16 seconds, to take 2nd with a 25.28, followed by Brian Koehr who went 25.31 to take 3rd.
- Add Tim Costello’s 6th place and you end up with a hugely lopsided score for the event in favor of Seton.
| Seton | FCS | |
| Event Score | 21 | 8 |
| Meet Score | 56 | 49 |
100 Butterfly
- We had four (4) PRs for our four (4) scoring swims, so even though we ultimately lost this event 15-14, it’s hard to feel badly about it.
- Alex Ceol took 2nd place with a huge 3.79 second PR – his second big individual PR of the day!
- Will Arnold also had a big 2.21 second PR to take 3rd.
- One huge surprise in this event came from Josh Miller who dropped his 100 Fly time from 1:35.99 to 1:12.50 – that’s no typo – that’s a 23.49 second PR! And that great swim jumped him for the slower heats all the way up to 5th
- I originally had Jack Santschi as a scorer in this meet, and his 2.22 second PR would have placed 6th, but Jack is only in 7th grade so I was forced to make him exhibition. Next year Jack!
- RJ Kenna’s also had a PR in this event, by .02 seconds, and that placed 8th.
- So our great swimming was enough to prevent FCS from adding a 4th, 6th and 7th to their first place finish, but I still felt very good about how we swam in this event.
| Seton | FCS | |
| Event Score | 14 | 15 |
| Meet Score | 70 | 64 |
100 Free
- This was an event that was mis-scored during the actual meet because the times for the fast heat were accidently overwritten with the times from Heat 1. That changed the score in FCS’s favor from what was announced.
- Once again, FCS put two of their top seniors in a single event and they took both 1st and 2nd
- Cris Salas had his second great PR swim of the day, cutting .39 seconds to go 57.48 to take 3rd
- Brian Koehr and Brendan Santschi took 4th and 7th
- Tim Costello also had a PR – a big one – cutting 3.56 seconds to 1:02.67, which was good enough for 6th.
- So now, our lead was nearly gone.
| Seton | FCS | |
| Event Score | 12 | 17 |
| Meet Score | 82 | 81 |
500 Free
- Here was an event where some really great swimming from Dominic Wittlinger and Will Arnold may have saved the meet for Seton. Their PRs got us 4 more points than we would have otherwise gotten.
- We knew we couldn’t beat FCS’s top kid, but Dominic Wittlinger could beat their second swimmer. Dominic was actually seeded 4th and jumped all the way to 2nd with a 10.83 second PR!
- Then Will Arnold, who was seeded 7th, jumped up to 5th with his 23.88 second PR! It was so much fun watching Will blow past his FCS competitor on the last lap of the race!
- Martin Quinan took 3rd with a very strong swim, and Patrick Hall jumped into the scoring when his 5.61 second PR got him into 7th I was very pleased with Patrick after that race.
| Seton | FCS | |
| Event Score | 15 | 14 |
| Meet Score | 97 | 95 |
200 Free Relay
- Once again, the strength of FCS’ USA swimmers was more than we could handle in a relay, but our depth got us 2nd and 3rd
- Our “A” Relay was Grant Mantooth, Tim Costello, Josh Miller and Brian Koehr. Josh swam particularly well, splitting 25.87
- Our “B” Relay was Seamus Koehr, Kevin Geiran, Joe Fioramonti and Patrick Hall. The splits were not accurate for most of this relay, but I could see that Seamus Koehr has a great lead-off leg swimming a .98 second PR 26.71!
- This event ate away the last two points of our lead, so with only 3 events left, the meet was tied!
| Seton | FCS | |
| Event Score | 8 | 10 |
| Meet Score | 105 | 105 |
100 Backstroke
- Here’s where the strategy came in. FCS loaded up Backstroke with 3 of their top swimmers and took 1st, 2nd and 5th.
- That left David Flook and Matt Fioramonti with a close 3rd and 4th – in fact, David was only .26 seconds from 2nd
- Seamus Koehr had his 3rd big PR of the meet cutting an amazing 3.15 seconds to go 1:14.77. It took a nearly 2 second PR from the FCS swimmer to keep Seamus out of 5th.
- Joe Fioramonti wrapped up our scoring with a 7th place finish.
- Now we had some ground to make up! We were 5 points down, and I strongly suspected that we’d lose another two points on the last relay – so could we gain more than 7 points in Breaststroke?
| Seton | FCS | |
| Event Score | 12 | 17 |
| Meet Score | 117 | 122 |
100 Breaststroke
- Yes – we could gain more than 7 points – how about that 1st, 3rd, 4th and 5th!
- Martin Quinan may have been yet another Seton swimmer to save the meet for us. His .64 second PR got him the 1st place points by only .07 seconds!
- That’s a 4 point swing, so it is no overstatement to say that we won this meet by .07 seconds!
- Martin was the beneficiary of some personal coaching from former Seton All-State swimmer Cat Rogers this past week – did she help him get that .64 seconds? I think so!
- Grant Mantooth and Andrew Quinan were also coached this week by Cat Rogers
- Grant Mantooth had another huge PR here – this time by an incredible 2.28 seconds – and that took 3rd
- Andrew Quinan followed suit with a 1.50 second PR to take 4th, and Josh Miller followed in 5th
- This put the final nail in the coffin – we won the event by 11 points, an amount that could only be overcome if FCS could take a 1st and 3rd in the final relay.
| Seton | FCS | |
| Event Score | 20 | 9 |
| Meet Score | 137 | 131 |
400 Free Relay
- Our Boys “A” Relay swam an amazing race. Brian Koehr, Alex Ceol, Matt Fioramonti and Andrew Quinan swam 6.32 seconds faster than our fastest 400 Free relay this year and almost won. It took a 49.53 split by the FCS anchor to beat us.
- Alex Ceol and Andrew Quinan were particularly strong, splitting 54.30 and 53.88 respectively!
- So the whole meet was riding on our “B” Relay of Will Arnold, Grant Mantooth (who just swam breaststroke), Dominic Wittlinger and David Flook – and they came through, beating the FCS “B” Relay by 2.94 seconds and sealing the victory for Seton!
| Seton | FCS | |
| Event Score | 8 | 10 |
| Meet Score | 145 | 141 |
The Boys conference champion is going to come down to the result of our next meet. I’m working to clarify the tiebreaker with the Athletic Directors. Last year, using the results of the first two meets only, FCS beat us by more than we beat them so they were declared the conference champion – but then we beat them in our third meeting making us 2-1 against them.
How Many Ways Could It Have Ended Up Differently for Our Girls?
Like the Boys, when you look at the Girls results event by event, you can really see how it got so close between the Girls for Seton and Trinity Christian. Also, like the Boys, the clear advantage that we had was our depth. Can you believe that this meet came down to only .01 seconds? See below for why.
Here’s an event by event account of how the tide turned against us, in spite of some really good swimming by our Girls. We won the first meeting on December 4th by 40 points, so even without Anna Kenna and Vivian Zadnik, I figured we’d be fine – but we were going to have to hit every race just right.
Note how many different ways we could have gotten just one more point and didn’t. (Recall that Relays are scored 1st thru 3rd with 10-5-3 points and Individual events are scored 1st thru 7th with 8-6-5-4-3-2-1 points):
200 Medley Relay
- We had a tough break right out of the gate here when our Girls “A” medley relay, after winning by nearly 11 seconds, was disqualified.
- Fortunately for us, the damage wasn’t worse because the Trinity Christian “B” Relay also was disqualified.
- Our “B” Relay of Therese Pechie, Mary Heim, Meghan O’Malley and Michaela Pennefather swam very well, particularly Meghan O’Malley’s butterfly split of 31.18.
- So after the Trinity “A” Relay beat our “B” Relay, we were only 5 points behind – it could have been much worse!
| Seton | TCS | |
| Event Score | 5 | 10 |
| Meet Score | 5 | 10 |
200 Freestyle
- Our depth became obvious right from the beginning with a 1st, 4th, 5th and 6th in this event.
- Kimberly Rector claimed the 1st place points with a State cut followed by Bridget O’Malley, Bryanna Farmer and Kalli Dalrymple who took the 3rd – 5th place points, respectively.
- In only one event, our deficit was gone.
| Seton | TCS | |
| Event Score | 17 | 12 |
| Meet Score | 22 | 22 |
200 Individual Medley
- This event was a repeat of the 200 Free for Seton, but this time, it was Emily Heim who took the 1st place points for us.
- Emily had a great meet – I know how much Emily loves the 200 IM, and her swim here was one of the many things that kept us from losing this meet!
- One of the up-and-coming stars of our team is 8th grader Caroline Griffin who swam a .32 second PR to take 4th
- Ashley Cackett (SO), after literally having brain surgery earlier in the year, took 5th and Mary Heim (FR) took 6th
- It’s hard to beat the depth of Seton, and it was already making a big difference here.
| Seton | TCS | |
| Event Score | 17 | 12 |
| Meet Score | 39 | 33 |
50 Free
- In spite of some good swimming here, we lost some ground in this event after TCS’ top swimmer took first with a very fast 25.01. Trinity also took 3rd, 4th and 6th
- Fortunately, team Captain Claire Kenna came through for us to take 2nd
- A surging Julia Rowzie, had a huge .66 second PR that jumped up to 5th place – by .01 seconds! Had Julia done a .65 second PR, Seton would have lost the meet!
- So it’s not an overstatement to say that Julia Rowzie saved the meet for Seton by only .01 seconds!
- Cat Pechie wrapped up the scoring for us with a crucial 1 point for 7th
| Seton | TCS | |
| Event Score | 10 | 19 |
| Meet Score | 49 | 52 |
100 Butterfly
- This was a very good event for Seton, particularly with Kimberly Rector’s 1st place swim. Kimberly swam a new State Qualifying time in the process. I am very pleased with the improvements that I am seeing in Kimberly’s stroke – improvements that will be crucial for our Girl’s Medley Relay at States
- And once again, it was our depth that scored crucial points. Meghan O’Malley took 3rd, Michaela Pennefather’s 2.24 second PR took 4th, and Bryanna Farmer took 5th
- We were back on top!
| Seton | TCS | |
| Event Score | 20 | 6 |
| Meet Score | 69 | 58 |
100 Free
- This event was a repeat of the 50 Free – with the same swimmers scoring most of the points.
- Once again, Claire Kenna had a good swim, but took 2nd place to TCS’ top girl.
- We also took 5th, 6th and 7th with three PR swims by Cat Pechie (by .79 seconds), Julia Rowzie (by 2.9 seconds), and Katie Albin (by 2.51 seconds), respectively.
- The back and forth continues…
| Seton | TCS | |
| Event Score | 12 | 17 |
| Meet Score | 81 | 75 |
500 Free
- Fortunately, TCS was only able to put two swimmers in this event, but unfortunately, they were both very strong freshman who were able to take both 1st and 2nd
- Ashley Cackett, Reilly Cuccinelli, Meghan O’Malley and Therese Pechie took 3rd through 6th, respectively, including a huge 17.76 PR by Therese!
| Seton | TCS | |
| Event Score | 14 | 14 |
| Meet Score | 95 | 89 |
200 Free Relay
- This one hurt us, because Trinity Christian got both 1st and 3rd meaning they won the event 13 – 5
- That doesn’t mean that we didn’t have some good swims though.
- Our “A” Relay of Kimberly Rector, Reilly Cuccinelli, Emily Heim and Claire Kenna took 2nd, with both Reilly and Emily swimming faster than PR splits
- Our “B” Relay was only 1.34 seconds behind the TCS “B” Relay. Bridget O’Malley and Mary Heim both had very strong, better than PR, splits, but it just wasn’t enough.
- Our lead was gone.
| Seton | TCS | |
| Event Score | 5 | 13 |
| Meet Score | 100 | 102 |
100 Backstroke
- On the strength of two PRs swims, we were able to take back one of the two points we were down by claiming points for 2nd, 4th, 5th and 6th place
- Caroline Griffin, only an 8th grader, took 2nd place and Bridget O’Malley, a sophomore, took 4th
- Michaela Pennefather had her second PR of the day with her 5th place finish, and Katharine Rowzie took 6th place with her 1.61 second PR.
- The meet was within one point with only two events remaining.
| Seton | TCS | |
| Event Score | 15 | 14 |
| Meet Score | 115 | 116 |
100 Breaststroke
- Like the Boys meet versus FCS, breaststroke was a huge event for us with girls. We took 1st, 3rd, 4th, and 6th which resulted in huge points!
- Emily Heim is back! She swam by far her best time of the season, 1:13.99, crushing the State cut and taking her 2nd first place finish of the day.
- Then Reilly Cuccinelli jumped up to 3rd place with a great 1:20.42 swim followed by Mary Heim’s 4th place after a .04 second PR.
- Katie Albin rounded out the scoring with her 6th place finish.
- Our lead was 8 points going into the final relay.
| Seton | TCS | |
| Event Score | 19 | 10 |
| Meet Score | 134 | 126 |
400 Free Relay
- At this point in the meet, I took the microphone from our great announcer, Mr. John Kleb, to explain the situation. If TCS got 1st and 3rd, they’d win the event 13-5 and that 8 points would mean a tie.
- And that’s exactly what happened – but not through a lack of effort on our part.
- Our “A” Relay of Reilly Cuccinelli, Julia Rowzie, Bridget O’Malley and Meghan O’Malley swam very well. Reilly swam a 2.01 second PR on the lead-off leg and Julia and Meghan swam splits that were much faster than their standing start PRs – but the USA swimmers from TCS were just too strong.
- Our “B” Relay of Caroline Griffin, Michaela Pennefather, Cat Pechie and Ashley Cackett also swam well, particularly Caroline’s 1.23 second PR for the lead-off.
| Seton | TCS | |
| Event Score | 5 | 13 |
| Meet Score | 139 | 139 |
So for the first time in the history of Seton Swimming, we didn’t win a Girl’s conference meet. Congratulations to Trinity Christian. In only their first year having a swimming program, they have really gotten off to a great start!
Another 88 Personal Records!
This week’s emphasis was Breaststroke after yet another week of heavy work on technique in practice. It was very gratifying to see so many heads down on the glide. I could tell that we still have a ways to go, but the results are indicative of some pretty significant progress.
How about 15 PRs out of 22 swims for the boys and 12 PRs out of 20 swims for the girls!? Many of the swimmers that didn’t hit PRs were already top Breaststrokers, or people that missed Time Trials, so we are more likely to see PRs from them later in the season as their conditioning advances. Also, we had several new swimmers disqualified so I’m sure we’ll hit even more PRs as we work to fix this. And as you’ll see, it is not just the number of Breaststroke PRs that was exciting – it was also the magnitude. It is amazing how much you can improve just by swimming the strokes properly.
Here are the Personal Records that struck me as the most dramatic:
- Jack Santschi, only a 7th grader, also continues to show dramatic improvement. I was so pleased to see a 7.70 second PR in 100 Breast from Jack, who is already swimming well in Butterfly too
- Kathleen O’Malley had to really big PRs. In 100 Breaststroke, she dropped an amazing 9.82 seconds and in 50 Free she dropped an amazing 2.92 seconds. Whatever you ate for breakfast Kathleen, try it again!
- Shane Koehr had an amazing 8.86 second PR in 100 Breaststroke!
- Jeremy Kleb’s Breaststroke was amazing! How about a 16.06 second PR! He also cut .70 seconds from his 50 Free PR.
- Mairead Geiran, a 7th grader, would have scored a lot of points for us had she been allowed. Her 8.47 second PR would have placed 2nd in 200 Free, and her 2.44 second PR would have placed 2nd in 100 Breaststroke!
- Kevin Geiran, in his first year on the team, has improved so much, that he’s now swimming on our scoring relays. Swims like his .35 second PR in 50 Free and his 5.21 second PR in 100 Breast are the reasons.
- Joe Arnold (8), cut 10.40 seconds from his 100 Breaststroke PR and an amazing 4.09 seconds from his 50 Free PR.
Here are the Personal Records that I have not already mentioned that were also very impressive:
- Marcie Van de Voorde dropped 7.56 seconds in 100 Breaststroke!
- Maria Tozzi dropped 3.09 seconds in 100 Breaststroke. She also dropped 1.77 seconds in 50 Free. She’s only in 7th grade, so I’m seeing a real future on the team for Maria!
- Anthony Spinosa continues to show dramatic improvement. How about a 3.09 second PR in 100 Free and a 1.77 second PR in 50 Free!
- Julia Rowzie but another .67 seconds from her 50 Back PR leading off a relay
- Martin Quinan topped off his big meet with a .57 second PR in 50 Free leading off a relay.
- Mary Ostrich lowered her 100 Breaststroke PR by a big 3.99 seconds.
- Patrick Murray lowered his 50 Back PR leading off a medley relay by 2.05 seconds.
- Anton Murray cut .34 seconds from his 50 Free PR
- Josh Miller lowered his 50 Back PR by .51 seconds while leading off a medley relay
- RJ Kenna lowered his 100 Breaststroke PR by 1.81 seconds
- Sean Kellogg had two big PRs. In 100 Breaststroke, he cut 5.65 seconds, and in 50 Free he cut .73 seconds.
- Tom Irving dropped a whole 6.00 seconds in 100 Breaststroke and another .35 seconds in 50 Free.
- Julianna Holmes cut .86 seconds from her 100 Breaststroke PR and 1.87 seconds from her 50 Free PR.
- Bernadette Hassan dropped a huge 4.82 seconds in 100 Breaststroke
- Chris Hartung can now swim Breaststroke and he proved it with his 2.53 second PR. Chris also dropped another .56 seconds from his 50 Free PR
- Ryan Hall can also swim breaststroke now, lowering his PR by 2.91 seconds.
- Rosie Hall had a good meet with two PRs. In 100 Breast, she cut 1.22 seconds and in 50 Free she cut .71 seconds.
- Matthew Fioramonti cut another .12 seconds from his 50 Back PR leading off our “A” medley relay
- Justin Fioramonti lowered his 50 Free PR by another .72 seconds
- Patrick Dealey had a big drop in 100 Breaststroke, cutting 3.67 seconds.
- Katie Dealey lowered her 50 Free PR by another .11 seconds. I was sitting next to her lane right as one of her kicks resulted in a splash that completely soaked me 😉
- Kalli Dalrymple fought through shoulder pain to swim a .94 second PR in 100 Breaststroke
- Ben Ceol continues to swim very well. On Saturday, he swam a 4.10 second PR in 100 Breaststroke and a .28 second PR in 50 Free.
- David Catabui was super in 100 Breaststroke, dropping 3.57 seconds from his PR
- Elizabeth Caron, another 7th grader with a big future on our team, cut 2.82 seconds in 100 Breaststroke and 2.31 seconds in 100 Free.
- Ashley Cackett cut .77 seconds from her 50 Back PR leading off a medley relay
- Katie Albin lowered her 50 Free PR once again – this time by 2.30 seconds leading off a relay.
Other Great Performances
Here are some other exciting things I remember or took notes on from the meet:
- Dani Flook hit the State cuts in both the 50 and 100 Freestyle, swimming a .05 second PR in the 50 and swimming very close to her PR in the 100.
- Even in the midst of the DQ of our Girls Medley Relay, Claire Kenna’s anchor leg was awesome – it was fun to watch her walk down that swimmer from John Paul the Great.
- Mairead Geiran’s freestyle turns are great! And that made all the difference in 200 Free where she raced another outstanding 7th grader from FCS. I think we’ll be seeing some good races between Mairead Geiran and Marissa George in the future.
- Peter Tozzi, Patrick Hall, Christian Ceol, Justin Fioramonti and John Pennefather all did a great job in their first ever attempts at 100 Fly
- I was so impressed with the way Leo Santschi looked during his leg of the 200 Free Relay – the guy really looks like a swimmer now!
- Katie Albin lost her googles during the 200 Free Relay, but she didn’t let it impact her swim. She did exactly what you are supposed to do in that case – just keep rolling!
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 Loyola University in Baltimore on January 23-24th, and the State Championship is moving back to the Collegiate Aquatic Center in Richmond February 19-20th.
Congratulations to Emily Heim who hit both the State and National Catholic Qualifying time in 100 Breaststroke. She joins Anna Kenna, Kimberly Rector and Claire Kenna among the group of individual qualifiers for both meets from Seton so far. I’ve posted eligibility reports under Meet & Team Information.
It is also fun to note that we have a number of relays that have hit the qualifying times for States and National Catholics:
- States
- Boys 200 Medley Relay – both “A” and “B” Relays
- Girls 200 Medley Relay – both “A” and “B” Relays
- Boys 200 Free Relay – “A” Relay
- Girls 200 Free Relay – “A” Relay
- Boys 400 Free Relay – “A” Relay
- Girls 400 Free Relay – “A” Relay
- National Catholics
- Boys 200 Medley Relay –“A” Relay
- Girls 200 Medley Relay –“A” Relay
- Girls 400 Free Relay – “A” Relay
Also Recall: 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!
Welcome Home Alumni!
It was great to see so some of our alumni at the meet, and even in the water. Our Seminarian, Sean Koehr, anchored a relay that included Cat Rogers swimming both backstroke and breaststroke and Coach Paul Pechie swimming butterfly.
Also at the meet were Daniel Quinan, Alex Sinner, Mark Fioramonti, and Patrick Pennefather. It was great to see them all!
Final Notes
- Don’t forget: I’ve scheduled the pool time at Central Park for practices over Christmas break. I’m targeting December 21st, 22nd, 28th and 29th from 10:00 to 11:30 a.m. for Varsity swimmers (non-exhibition) only. If you are in town, I will expect you to come. If we want to be ready for the championship season which begins only a month after Christmas, we need to train over break. Former Seton Captains Cat Rogers and Lauren “the Machine” Donohoe will be handling the practices on Dec 21st and 22nd and I’m still confirming guest coaches for Dec 28th and 29th. Rumor has it that former State Champion and National Catholic High School Champion Alex Doonis may coach with Vincent Dunn. Come ready to work.
- On December 31st we’ll have our annual Cystic-Fibrosis Swim-a-thon from 10:00 a.m. to Noon. Thanks again to the Given family for running it again. You should already have your fundraising page set up and have some e-mails out to family and friends.
- Can we please quit breathing so much during the 50 Free?
Now is the point in the season when we start breaking swimmers down in anticipation of a big taper before the championship meets. Do everything you can not to miss practice!
Have a Merry Christmas,
Coach Jim Koehr