Last Saturday, Seton Swimming traveled to St. Michael the Archangel for a conference invitational meet and locked up our 18th straight conference championship. Our meet hosts ran an excellent event and were very gracious to our swimmers and coaches. It is always a pleasure to swim against the good folks at St. Michael the Archangel.
The final scoring for the meet ended up like this:
Girls
Seton 220 Wakefield School 39
Seton 216 Wakefield Country Day 36
Seton 212 Middleburg Academy 35
Seton 211 St. Michael the Archangel 53
Seton 203 Highland 74
Seton 181 Bishop Ireton (partial team) 85
Boys
Seton 202 Highland 49
Seton 195 Middleburg Academy 41
Seton 189.5 Wakefield Country Day 58.5
Seton 177 Wakefield School 63
Seton 163 St. Michael the Archangel 103
Seton 140 Bishop Ireton (partial team) 104
Top Performers
Here are some of the performances that stood out as I talked to the other coaches and looked through the results. The seldom excitable Coach Lowell was very excited about some of these when I spoke with him on the phone after the meet:
- One of the performances that excited Coach Lowell the most was Emily Heim’s 100 Breaststroke where she dropped an incredible 2.42 seconds, went 1:15.78, and qualified for States by more than 2 seconds. Every week, it seems like one of these 8th grade girls does something amazing – this week it was Emily’s turn!
- But not to be outdone, Kimberly Rector continued her streak of amazing performance in the middle distance events. I had to double check her times after I saw on the Individual meet results report that she dropped 93.19 seconds in the 500 Free? Could it be true? Yep – she dropped from 7:45 last season all the way down to 6:11.81 and took 1st place! That is an amazing time for an 8th grade girl, and it came within 1.58 seconds of the state cut of 6:10.23! That’s only .3 seconds per 100 off the pace. I plan to have Kimberly swim the 500 at the VISAA Division II Invitational on February 4th so she can get this cut.
- Another performance that leap to the front of Coach Lowell’s mind was Sarah Blanchard’s anchor on one of our medley relays. Apparently, she walked down Highland’s anchor leg with her powerful sprint freestyle and ultimately led our relay to a .06 second victory! Too bad they didn’t get splits down at St. Michael’s – I would have loved to see how fast she went. And I’m so sorry I missed that one – I really like to watch Sarah swim!
- We’re approaching the time of year when you are going to start to hear a lot about Vincent “Catfish” Dunn. On Saturday, I had him swimming events he almost never swims and he managed to take a 1st in 200 IM and a 2nd in 100 Breast. Even though “Breaststroke” and “Catfish” seldom go together, he managed to hang with one of Bishop Ireton’s top swimmers.
- Cat Rogers was in a similar boat, swimming “off” events to give her a mental break before the championship season, and she too took a 1st and 2nd, in 100 Fly and 200 Free. Her 200 Free was against the top swimmer on the BI girls team – who normally swims the 200 Free.
- Alex Sinner is only a freshman, but she’s scoring like an upperclassman. I was very pleased to see her two 3rd place finishes in 100 Fly and 100 Back on Saturday.
Post-Season Championship Qualifiers
Two of our biggest meets of the year are the National Catholic High School Championships at Villanova in Philly and the Virginia State Championship at Freedom. Both of those meets require participants to hit qualifying times to be eligible for participation. Here’s where our championship swim teams stand as of this weekend. The National Catholic Team is now final and the entries are posted under Meet & Team Information:
| States | National Catholics |
| · Cat Rogers
· Alex Doonis · Alex Sinner · Claire Kenna · Kimberly Rector · Emily Heim · Vincent “Catfish” Dunn · Michael Hill · Girls 200 Medley Relay · Girls 200 Free Relay · Girls 400 Free Relay · Boys 200 Medley Relay · Boys 200 Free Relay · Boys 400 Free Relay |
· Cat Rogers
· Alex Doonis · Alex Sinner · Claire Kenna · Kimberly Rector · Jillian Ceol · Emily Heim · Vincent “Catfish” Dunn · Girls 200 Medley Relay (Doonis, Rogers, Sinner and Kenna) · Girls 200 Free Relay (Doonis, Kenna, Sinner, and Rogers) · Girls 400 Free Relay (Sinner, Ceol, Rector, and Kenna) |
To be eligible to swim in a relay at States, you either have to have swum in the relay when it hit the qualifying time or you need to have qualified individually. The relay line-ups that I ultimately use will depend a lot on who ends up swimming the fastest times prior to the events and where I think we can score the most points. I suspect that the girls State relays will look a lot like the ones we are sending the National Catholics, but there are still many possible iterations on for the boys.
As for the divers, Coach Duran will determine that based on who she believes can compete with 11 dives. As of now, I suspect that group includes Joe Duran, Michael Manley, Sarah Zapiain, Keziah Higginbottom, and Mary Duran. I know that Joe Kosten recently started working toward that goal. Joe is also close in 100 Breaststroke.
Personal Records
There were some really big PRs on Saturday – 57 of them to be exact, including (starting with “P” this time just to mix it up a bit ;-)):
- 7th grader Cat Pechie had a great swim in 50 Free dropping .97 seconds from her previous personal best.
- And brother Paul Pechie also swam well, cutting 4.31 seconds from his PR in 500 Free.
- How about Andrew Quinan’s86 second drop in 100 Back? Very nice swimming Andrew!
- Junior Peter Quinan continues to show that hard work pays off. Last weekend, he cut 2.42 seconds from his 50 Free! I’ve been using him in the longer events, but I guess he’s showing me that I can never underestimate him in the sprints. This coming weekend, I have him leading off a 400 Free relay to see what he can do in 100 Free.
- Mary Remington made Coach Remington proud with her 2 PRs: in 100 Breaststroke, she cut 3.04 seconds and in 100 Free, she cut 1.71 seconds – those are big improvements at this point in the season!
- Rose Remington also had a good meet, cutting another .68 seconds from her 50 Free PR
- Cat Rogers got a chance to swim something besides sprint freestyle and breaststroke. In the process, she cut .20 seconds from her 200 Free PR after a hard week of practice at QDD.
- Nice work Meridyth Rosato! You dropped another .50 seconds from your 50 Free PR!
- Ali Salas took what she learned in practice and applied it to her 100 Breaststroke race where she lowered her PR by 3.25 seconds.
- Steven Shaw cut .03 seconds from his 200 IM PR
- Theresa Verry had a nice swim in 100 Free, cutting 1.24 seconds from her personal record.
- 7th grader John Wunderly lowered his 100 Back PR by 3.46 seconds.
- Lizzy Zadnik swam well in 100 Free, cutting .36 seconds from her PR
- And sister Vivian Zadnik also had a PR swim, cutting 2.21 seconds from her 100 Back PR.
- William Arnold dropped again, this time 1.05 seconds in 100 Free.
- Lucy Bennett doesn’t usually get the chance to swim 100 Back, but she took advantage of it and cut 1.58 seconds from her PR.
- Sarah Blanchard not only rocked on the anchor leg of that medley relay, she cut 2.80 seconds from her 100 Fly!
- Hugh Brien managed two PRs on Saturday: In 100 Back, he cut 1.85 seconds and in 100 Free, he cut .11 seconds. I’d love to see Hugh break 1:00 in 100 Free before he graduates!
- Stephen Britten is showing great potential on our team, and his 100 Breaststroke continues to get better. He lowered his PR by .21 seconds.
- Carly Byers had an awesome swim in 100 Fly, cutting 16.40 seconds from her personal record.
- Mary Camarca has really come on strong since the beginning of the year. She managed to harness all of that energy and turn it into 2 PRs. In 100 Back, she cut 6.16 seconds and in 50 Free, she cut 1.28 seconds. I was really impressed with her today in practice as I coached her lane – she was leading the pack, and no one was working harder than Mary. I hope her father reads this – he would have been pleased.
- Junior Seth Catalano continues to show improvement. Even though this is his first year on the team, he has become a major contributor. Coach Lowell and I often discuss what a great feel he has for the water, and it showed on Saturday with is 5.57 second PR in 100 Back.
- Jillian Ceol showed her versatility by cutting 2.37 seconds from her 100 Fly PR.
- My nephew Tim Costello had a great meet Saturday. I was very pleased to see that he PR’d in 100 Back, by 4.47 seconds, and in 100 Free, by 1.25 seconds!
- Patrick Dealey also had two PRs: In 100 Back, he cut 3.50 seconds and in 50 Free, he cut .33 seconds.
- Bryanna Farmer, another one of our 8th grade girls, keep the class tradition with 2 PRs. She cut .27 seconds in 100 Free and .08 seconds in 50 Free on Saturday.
- Cecilia Garvey must have swum well – how else do you explain that huge 4.69 second personal record in 100 back? I heard her father was there to see it all in person – sorry I missed him.
- Emily Heim not only hit the big PR in 100 Breast, she lowered her 50 Free PR by another .31 seconds.
- Sarah Heim had a big drop in 200 Free, cutting 4.21 seconds from her 200 Free PR.
- Swimmer and Diver Keziah Higginbottom has a great work ethic in practice, so I was very pleased to see her cut 1.92 seconds from her 100 Free PR on Saturday.
- Michael Hill has really improved in the sprints during his senior season. On Saturday, he cut another .10 seconds from his 50 Free PR.
- Tyler Hoffman came up big with 2 PRs: In 100 Breast, he lowered his PR by an amazing 11.80 seconds and in 50 Free, he lowered his PR by 2.75 seconds. Those are big drops!
- Julia Irving must have been great in the 500 Free –she cut 2.49 seconds from her 500 Free PR.
- 8th grader Claire Kenna had her usual outstanding performance with a 4.08 second PR in 200 Free and a 2.45 second PR in 100 Fly.
- Brian Koehr followed up his tremendous performance in the 500 Free last week with a 6.67 second PR in 100 Free. I was really excited to see that Brian’s hard work earned him a spot on the post-season varsity team.
- Joseph Kosten had a nice swim in the 200 Free where he cut his PR by .63 seconds
- Jessica Krynitski had 2 PRs on Saturday, both of which were significant drops. In 100 Free, she dropped 2.83 seconds and in 50 Free, she dropped 1.86 seconds.
- David Lambrecht has really had a tremendous season, with big improvements almost every time he has hit the water. How about Saturday’s 23.51 second PR in 100 Fly?
More on the St. Michael the Archangel Conference Invitational
- 8th grader Geni Lucas is another swimmer you can count on to work hard in practice, so I’m very pleased to see her getting results. She had two PRs including a 5.67 second PR in 200 Free and a .21 second PR in 100 Free.
- Luke Marrazzo has had a breakout season as far as I can tell – he has become one of our key swimmers on the boys side. A 6.87 second PR in 100 Fly is an example of why I can say that.
- Sally Marrazzo is also having a good year. She cut another .96 seconds from her 200 Free PR on Saturday.
- James Mosimann was awesome in the 200 Free, lowering his PR by 11.92 seconds. He also lowered his 100 Back PR by .84 seconds.
- Paul Mosimann cut another .06 seconds from his 100 Free PR.
- John O’Donohue was really working hard in practice this morning when I was coaching his lane. Maybe that work ethic is why he was able to lower his 50 Free PR by 2.41 seconds?
- Mark O’Donohue is another one who is working hard and getting results. He lowered his 50 Free PR by .43 seconds this past weekend.
First-Timers
I always like to see our swimmers get out of their comfort zones and try new things, (even if they act like they don’t want to ;-)). I’m seldom surprised when I see how well they do, because I’ve seen over the years how much more our typical swimmer can do than they think they can do. Some of those who tried the more difficult events for the first time this weekend included:
100 Fly 500 Free 200 IM
Joseph Zapiain Dani Flook Tommy Flook
Cris Salas
Stephen Britten
Sarah Brien
I can see bright futures for all of these swimmers in Seton Swimming!
**********************
This coming Saturday is the last weekend of the regular season and the last weekend of swimming for a little over half the team. Let’s make the most of it!
See you at practice!
Coach Koehr