We had another great meet against North Stafford High School (1,200 students) this past Saturday. With four of our top swimmers missing, we showed that we have many other swimmers capable of stepping up and getting the job done. Our girls were particularly impressive, beating North Stafford handily. The scores:
Girls: Seton 160 N. Stafford 126
Boys: Seton 107 N. Stafford 178
A quick look at the results shows that our girls took 1st place in every event except one. We also took all three girls relays. The following swimmers placed in the top 3 on Saturday:
First Places:
Caitlin Harris – handily won the 200 and 500 Free, as usual
Bryan Morch – 200 IM and 100 Fly, both of these among the most difficult events
Laura Talbott – 200 IM, and she’s only in 8th grade!
Katie Planchak – dominated both the 50 and 100 free
Kimberley Melnyk – 100 Fly
Mary-Kate Kenna – 100 Breast
Second Places:
Melissa Dunn – 50 Free and 100 Breast
Hailey Moya – 100 Free, a freshman
Daniel Koehr – 500 Free, an 8th grader
David Basinger – 100 Back, a seventh grader
Third Places:
Hailey Moya – 200 Free, a freshman
Meghan Morch – 200 IM, a sophomore
Sean Koehr – 50 Free, a sophomore
Danielle Smith – 500 Free, a freshman
Bridget Wunderly, an 8th grader
That’s alot of points from so many young, up-and-coming swimmers!
Personal Records:
We had 44 personal records this weekend:
– David Basinger – cut almost 3 seconds off of his 200 Free. In 7th grade, he goes 2:13.49 – that’s very fast! He also dropped his backstroke time again by .88 seconds
– Daniel Koehr – dropped his 200 IM time by more than 13 seconds!
– Danielle Smith – incredibly, she lowered her 200 IM time from last year by 21 seconds! She also lowered her 500 free time by 2.89 seconds
– Kevin Hughes – continues to improve. He cut another 1.64 seconds off of his 50 free. It is now 29.05. A great time for someone who has never swum before. Who knows how fast he can go once he learns how to turn! His backstroke is also looking much better – he improved by 14.65 seconds
– Peter Duran – also broke 30 seconds in 50 Free for the first time when he dropped .55 seconds. He also took the challenge of 100 Fly and cut 4.60 seconds from his previous best!
– Sam Quninan – lowered his 50 Free time by 1.54 seconds and his 200 back time by 2.47 seconds.
– Michael O’Donohue – dropped another .67 seconds from his 50 Free time. Michael also cut 14.91 seconds from his 100 Breaststroke.
– Daniel Wheeler – lowered his 50 free by another 2.37 seconds.
– Mary-Kate Kenna – she dropped her 50 free time by .34 seconds to a fast 28.41, and she dropped .03 in her Breaststroke while swimming to 1st place.
– Alex Cummings – she’s been eating right. How else do you explain a 3.73 second drop in 50 Free
– Alyssa Shaw – cut 1.14 seconds from 50 free and 1.43 seconds from her 100 Breaststroke.
– Celia Gossin – starting to show some real improvement. She cut 1.76 seconds from her 50 free
– Tina Schiavone – lowered her 100 free by 2.81 seconds and improved her 50 free again, by 0.1 seconds
– Melyssa Harbour – dropped .96 seconds from her previous best 50 Free time
– David Harris – had an excellent swim in the 100 Fly, lowering his time by 2.83 seconds. He lowered his Breaststroke by 2.49 seconds.
– Joe Ross – dropped .37 seconds in 100 Free
– Guppy Higginbottom – lowered his 100 Free time again
– Christian Vestermark – he started listening to Coach Sam and cut 9.80 seconds from 100 Free! He also improved his 100 Back time by 3.74 seconds.
– Alex Crawford – lowered his 100 free time by 4.06 seconds
– Jonathan Rosato – great effort on 100 free, improving by 2.35 seconds
– Eileen Corkery – this 8th grader continues to improve, dropping 2.11 seconds from 100 Free and 1.21 seconds in 100 back.
– Daniel Koehr – swam the 500 Free and improved by 1.21 seconds
– Kristin Rafter – she’s really improving this season. She dropped almost 10 seconds from her 500 Free.
– Patrick Kenna – continues to improve. His 100 Back time is now 1.85 seconds faster
– Geoff Ross – I’ve never seen his backstroke look so good. He cut over 14 seconds off of his previous best time.
– Monica Byers – she continues to quietly impress us. She dropped another 1.97 from her 100 back.
– Kelsey Kleb – improved her 100 back time by 1.12 seconds
– Sean Koehr – dropped 1.07 seconds in 100 Breast down to a 1:10.06. Nice swim for 1st place.
– Dan Quinan – seems to be finding a home in the 100 Breast, again improving his time. This time by 3.32 seconds.
– Krista Shaw – continues to get noticed with an another improvement. This time she cut 2.60 seconds from her 100 Breaststroke time.
– Billy Corkery – cut 6 seconds from his 100 Free on the lead off leg of the 400 Free relay (more later).
Great Swims:
In addition to the PRs, there were several other great efforts:
– Betsy Mooney did a great job as the team manager in Beth’s absence. She got the meet sheets posted and made sure everyone knew of the last minute changes that we had to make. She helped me change relays and inform the officials. Most impressively, she volunteered to sing the National Anthem. “‘A’ for the Day”, Betsy!
– Before the meet, we were having trouble getting some data to the Colorado Timing System that displays names and times on the big board. We had no way to transport the data – that is until Andrew Cook came up with a way. He pulled a jump drive off his key chain and the problem was solved. When I was a teenager, I don’t recall carrying a 1 gig memory device on my key chain! Thanks Andrew, whose has volunteered to join Mr. Rosato and Mr. Wunderly as our CTS operators for all home meets.
– Bridget Wunderly had a great 50 back stroke leading off the C medley relay. Her backstroke is really starting to look nice.
– Tony Minarik took on the challenge of swimming both the 200 and 500 Free. During the 200, his goggles came off, but he did exactly what he was supposed to – you just keep swimming. In the 500, he almost broke 8:00. Now that he knows he can finish, I’m sure he’ll break 8:00 the next time.
– Laura Talbott has a nice win in the 200 IM. She was behind going into Breaststroke, but took the lead with 75 yards to go. She held on through Freestyle and won by a half a second.
– Guppy Higginbottom is a 7th grader who is already having an impact. He swam the 200 IM and broke 3:00 minutes.
– David Harris had a nice swim in 100 Fly. He pulled out 4th on the final length. We really needed those points. Great job David!
– Jonathan Rosato showed alot of heart in 100 Free. So did Alex Crawford.
– Charles Seltman is an extremely experienced referee who has been an official for some of the biggest meets in the country. He has seen the best swimmers. After the meet, he came up to me to compliment Hailey Moya’s freestyle. He was particularly impressed with the way she comes off of the wall. Hailey maintains a good streamline, does a couple butterfly kicks underwater, and then the “breaks out” nicely. I remember watching her 100 Free and seeing how she was gaining ground on every turn.
– Pat Gott really pushed that last 50 yards of the 500 Free.
– Caitlin Harris dominated the 200 Free. When she got up to the blocks for the 500, the North Stafford girl looked over, noticed it was Caitlin again, and let out an audible sigh. Poor girl. Caitlin didn’t disappoint.
– On the Boys 200 Free relay, John Ross anchored the D relay. When he dove in, his goggles immediately dropped to his chin. That wasn’t going to stop John. He had a great swim.
– The Boys 200 Free Relay was very competitive for the A relay. Sean Koehr was the anchor leg and had the fastest turn I’ve seen in a while from him. It helped us secure the 2nd place.
– Geoff Ross’s backstroke is looking much smoother. Monica Byers backstroke also looked quite good.
– If you ever want to see a look of utter determination, check out Katie Racine’s face during 100 backstroke. She really gives it her all every race.
– In the 400 Free Relay, our B Relay was beating that A relay after the first leg. Coach Mulhern turned to me with a look that said something like “how could you mess up that badly”. I had no idea, because Billy Corkery was crushing people. He finished the first leg with a spit of 1:00.49! I immediately went back to my folder to find his previous best time. It was a 1:06! What a drop!
– Kevin Hughes and Tony Minarik teamed up with Peter Duran and Dan Quinan for a really nice job in the 400 Free relay.
– I’m really enjoying watching Kristin Rafter swim this year. I am seeing alot of improvement. As we work on breaststroke and butterfly in the weeks before Christmas, I look forward to even more improvement from her.
Next Week:
For next week, we have a very special meet – possibly the first annual meet – with Collegiate School and Trinity Episcopal. These two schools are state powerhouses from Richmond. At last year’s state meet, their coaches and I realized that, if we ever got together, there would be some really good races. So we’ve made it reality. The meet will be unique in several ways:
- We will have 10 lanes in the championship configuration (from the end to a bulkhead) and will use the Colorado Timing System with the display board (I think we’ve worked out the kinks this past week so we are ready to roll with it.
- Events 9 and 10 are reserved for diving. Up until now, we always skip those events. Since Collegiate and TES both have diving teams, we will enter a diving team also. Coach Sam will bring Katie Racine, Megan Hoffer, Jonah Higginbottom, and Patrick Kenna to the boards to compete with 6 dives each. The events will occur between the 50 Free and the 100 Fly. If everything goes well, we will bring these divers (8th graders and above) down to States with us in the hopes that they can score some points for Seton.
- After the meet, we have the community room at Freedom for a pizza party with the other teams before they get on their buses and head back to Richmond. Bryan Morch, can you plan on supplying some Seton appropriate music for the affair? Recorded or live?
I am very excited about the opportunity to swim against this type of competition. We will start the first warm-up at 12:30 (Seton’s warm-up) and keep the pool for 4 hours instead of the usual 3 hours. This will not only allow us to do the diving competition, but it will also allow both teams to enter every swimmer in at least two events. They have JV teams, so there will be some good competition for everyone.
Great job this past weekend. Let’s put Seton on the map with a good showing next week. See you at practice!
Coach Koehr