Seton Swimming Runs with the Big Dogs

Wasn’t that a fast meet!  On Saturday for our annual Homecoming, Seton Swimming hosted 328 swimmers and divers from seven (7) teams including two big public schools, Brentsville and N. Stafford, and two Division I Independent Schools, perennial state champion Collegiate School from Richmond, and Flint Hill School from Vienna.  The swimming prowess of these schools was evident, even before the meet began:

• Brentsville, a school of 1,600 kids, was simply awesome. I knew their boys were the defending public school Division AA State Champion, and that they have the defending girls State Champion in the 100 Backstroke, but I didn’t fully realize how good they were until I saw them in the water.  It made me even more bummed that our meet together last year was cancelled for snow – I’m very confident that the girls outcome would have been different last year, and the boys would have certainly been a toss-up with Jamo, Connor Cook and Daniel Koehr still on the roster.  But take nothing away from them – they were very fast, and also very sportsmanlike.  I really like competing with good folks like the people from Brentsville.
• Collegiate, a VSIS Division I school, is always awesome. They were the Boys State champions in ’07, ’08, and ’09, and last year, both their boys and girls were runner-up for the State Championship.  They also had a 4-time All-America and 3 members of the defending state champion Boys 400 Free Relay in the water yesterday.  We swim Collegiate every year, and I really enjoy them also.  Their coach, Coach Mike Stott, writes for Swimming World Magazine, and is a real student of swimming.  He pays such close attention to his competition, that I first found out about how Bridget Wunderly did at NBAC last week from Coach Stott, not Bridget!
• North Stafford is another big public school with five times the student population of Seton’s. Their participation was the renewal of an annual rivalry we had developed between 2004 and 2007, but scheduling difficulties and then snow forced a hiatus that is now, hopefully, over.  They have a great, long-time coach, Coach Traci Abramson, who is super-friendly and a lot of fun to compete with – and our meets were always very close – and they still are! (See scores below).  I remember one meet in particular, back when we had great swimmers like Meg Seale (now a married mother of one), where the meet was so close, we lost it on a DQ of our girls medley relay.  And a quick perusal of the results will show you that they have only gotten better.
• Flint Hill has become a regular on our December swim schedule, again because of the quality of their swimmers and the sportsmanship of the coach and team. They have more than twice as many kids in their high school as Seton, but we always seem to compete at or above their level, so they are always a lot of fun to host.
• And then, there was Seton. We’ve won the girls VSIS Division II (small schools) State Championship for the last three (3) years in a row and the boys State Championship for the last 2 years in a row.  To round out a meet loaded with defending state champion entries, we had the defending overall State Champion in 50 Free and 3 of the 4 members of last year’s State Champion girls 200 Free Relay team.  I was very excited that, with only 240 kids in our high school we were able to compete favorably with these outstanding swimming programs.

Even though we ultimately lost to two of these four schools, we had some tremendous races and showed that, in specific events – especially the girls relays – we can beat schools with a talent pool much larger than ours.

The final scores for this week turned out like this:

Boys

Seton           115               Collegiate                               196

Seton           121               Brentsville                             188

Seton         161              N. Stafford                               148

Seton         190              Flint Hill                                  114

Seton         220             John Paul the Great                66

Seton         241              Wakefield                                 38

Seton         252              Middleburg Academy              24

Girls

Seton           128              Collegiate                               184

Seton           137               Brentsville                             172

Seton         154              N. Stafford                            154  – Tied!

Seton         201              Flint Hill                                  93

Seton         213              John Paul the Great                85

Seton         231              Wakefield                                 49

Seton         247              Middleburg Academy              10

Current Members of the Post Season Championship Teams

In anticipation of the championship season, we’re already starting to see who is going to be on our State and National Catholic Teams.  Both of these meet required participants to meet a specific qualified times, and there is still plenty of time for our swimmers to reach those times.

Here are the championship teams as they stand right now, not including relays:

National Catholic Team	State Team
·        Catfish Dunn ·        David Basinger ·        Joe Kenna ·        Carolyn Claybrooks ·        Lauren Donohoe ·        Alex Doonis ·        Rachel Lambrecht ·        Cat Rogers ·        Bridget Wunderly ·        Girls 200 Medley and 200 Free Relay Boys 200 Free Relay	·        Catfish Dunn ·        David Basinger ·        Michael Hill ·        Jamie Smith ·        Joe Kenna (Relay Anchor) ·        Patrick Kenna (Diving – so far!) ·        Lauren Donohoe ·        Alex Doonis ·        Cat Rogers ·        Bridget Wunderly ·        Rachel Lambrecht ·        Girls 200 Medley and 200 Free Relay ·        Boys 200 Medley, 200 and 400 Free Relay

Congratulations to these 11 swimmers!  A detailed report detailing the events in which everyone qualified is under Meet & Team Information.

Several other individual swimmers could break onto the championship teams by hitting individual qualification times or by swimming on relays that hit the qualifying times.  This could be particularly true of the 400 Free Relay for boys and girls.

Top Performances

Meets like this tend to bring out the best in those kids who are the real competitors, and this past Saturday was no exception:

• The race that I most looked forward to was the 2^nd event of the day, the Girls 200 Medley Relay, and Alex Doonis, Cat Rogers, Bridget Wunderly and Lauren Donohoe did not let me down. They took 1^st place overall and showed that they are poised to compete for the overall VSIS State Championship in this event when they broke our team record and went a very fast 1:54.96.  Alex started off with a .49 second PR lead-off split of 29.72.  That great lead-off was followed Cat’s Breastroke split of 31.98, Bridget’s PR 50 Fly split of 28.21 and The Machine’s anchor leg of 25.05.  As Bridget finished, the race between Brentsville and Seton was within .23 seconds.  Just a few seconds before Bridget actually touched, Lauren stood confidently on the block.  We made eye contact across the pool and both just nodded.  Lauren beat the Brentsville anchor by over 1.5 seconds to secure the victory by a comfortable margin.  Their 1:54.96 is probably one of the top two times swum by an independent girls school in the state this year.  Looking at last year’s state meet results, it looks like St. Catherines, the defending girls overall State champion for the last 4 years, might be the only thing between our girls and a relay state championship!
• And those same four girls, Alex, Cat, Bridget and Lauren, absolutely dominated in the 200 Free Relay, an event that 3 of the 4 of them swam for the gold medal at States last season. Their 1:42.87 also has to be one of the top times swum by an independent school in the State this year, and I can see the potential to repeat last year’s 1:40.05 team record performance.  Cat had the fastest split with her 24.97, and Bridget, replacing Laura Talbott from last year’s line-up, had a PR 50 split of 27.02.  This is going to be a very fast relay team in Christiansburg next February, with an excellence chance to defend their state championship in this event.
• I hate to keep calling David Basinger a “beast” every week, but that always seems to be the first word that comes to my head when I watch him swim. He has grown so much, both in terms of physical stature and in terms of maturity, and he is showing a very strong work ethic in practice, that the results he started to see just seem to follow naturally.  This week, he had the swim of the day for me in the 200 IM where he took 2^nd overall with a 2.39 second PR time of 2:02.80.  That’s a time that is faster than former Seton greats like Kevin Koehr and Connor Cook.  Only Nevin Cook and Jameson Hill have swum faster 200 IM times for Seton.  One really fun statistic to contemplate is that two of the Collegiate kids that David beat were State finalists in the 200 IM last year!  David also took 3^rd overall in a very fast 100 Free field.
• Lauren “The Machine” Donohoe showed the top sprinters from all four of big school competitors who’s the boss in the 50 Free, taking 1st place with a good early season time of 25.46. She popped up off of the start with a slight lead and never relinquished.  Lauren’s been working on her technique at the finish, which was much improved at the end of this race.  Lauren also had a great race in the 100 Free, taking 3^rd behind the other two top female swimmers in the entire meet, Brentsville’s Nicole Haynes, and Collegiate’s Mary Katherine Kish.  For some perspective on what kind of swimmer Lauren was facing in Mary Kate, Mary Kate holds the VSIS State record in 200 IM.
• Vincent “Catfish” Dunn is starting to make me believe that he can be even better in 100 Butterfly than in backstroke after he took 1^st place overall against two very fast butterfliers from Collegiate and Brentsville. His PR of 55.02 was even more impressive if you actually saw the race.  He was behind his top two competitors for most of the first 75, but his strong training kicked in during the last 30 yards.  Catfish caught them just before the final turn and pulled ahead with 15 yards to go.  He finished just .30 seconds ahead of Thomas Ferguson, one of last year’s state finalists in this event.  Catfish also had a great race in 100 Backstroke where he took 3^rd overall in a race where the difference between 1^st and 3^rd was only .45 seconds.  Catfish will be seeing Cameron Moore of Collegiate again in Christiansburg, I’m sure.  One other great swim for Catfish was in the first event of the day when he led off the medley relay with a .67 second PR 50 Back of 26.43 – and he was the first one to touch the wall.  States is going to be fun.
• Cat Rogers had three 1^st place finishes and a 3^rd place finish on Saturday to complete a great day of swimming, even though she’s been a little sick recently. Two of her 1^st place finishes were in the dominating girls relays, but her other one was in her signature event, 100 Breaststroke, where she matched her PR of 1:10.16 exactly to beat an outstanding breaststroker from Brentsville, Amy Tansill.  As always seems to be the case, Cat wins the close races with her incredible underwater pull-downs off of each wall.  And Cat continues to get better in the 200 IM where she took 3^rd overall with another PR, this one by .33 seconds, to go 2:21.69.
• Bridget Wunderly had a great performance with two first place relay finishes and two 2^nd place individual finishes. Her 100 Fly was particularly good, when after a 3 hour morning practice, she swam within .85 seconds of her personal record.  She also had a very fast 500 Free, beating everyone in the field except a girl from Flint Hill.
• Last week, freshman Joe Kenna blew us all away with his 24.43 50 Free. Well this week, while anchoring our medley relay, he split an amazing 23.78!  That split was good enough to hold off the strong anchor leg for N. Stafford by .07 seconds to preserve the 3^rd place overall finish. The kid’s only a freshman!  And Joe also took full advantage of the work we did on Butterfly this past week – he cut his PR in 100 Fly by 11.16 seconds to go 1:07.34, again, a really good time for a freshman.  As hard as Joe has been working with Coach Lowell in practice, I’m looking for even more improvement as the season progresses.
• Freshman Jamie Smith continues to be worthy of the Manassas News & Messenger’s designation as a swimmer to watch this season. His 4 PR afternoon included a 1.51 second PR in 500 Free where he is now down to 5:34.83, an outstanding time for a freshman boy.  He also cut 1.39 in the 200 Free to go 2:03.72, .47 seconds in 100 Free leading off a relay to go 56.32, and .45 seconds in 50 Free leading off a relay to go 25.37.  His swims in the 200 and 500 were both good enough for 10^th place overall.  He’s already qualified for States in the 500 and 200 IM, and now he’s getting very close in the 200 Free.
• Congratulations to 7^th grader Jillian Ceol who, although ineligible for these championship meets, hit the qualifying time for National Catholics after she cut 2.46 seconds from her PR in 50 Free to go 28.35! And Jillian’s split at the end of the medley was 28.21!  She won her 50 Free heat from the outside lane, right underneath me (lane 10), so I could clearly see that her breakout was text book perfect – just like we learned in practice.  Jillian now has the 4^th fastest 50 Free time on our entire girls team.  Now we’re going to spend some time making sure that Jillian, as well as all of her fellow 7^th graders, grows into a great all-around swimmer, not just a great sprinter.  One of the best compliments for to a swimmer is that they can swim all four strokes well, even backstroke 😉
• Congratulations to Jamie Smith, Brendan Koehr, Patrick Kenna and Steven Shaw who made the qualifying time for States in the 400 Free Relay. That swim makes them eligible for States, but who ultimately goes to the meets for relays depends on how I ultimately decide to line-up David and Catfish, a decision I’m not yet ready to make.

Personal Records

Watching the times as the meet progress, I was getting very excited about the number PRs were seeing.  We had entire heats of 100 and 200 Free that PR’d!  We had another 80 personal records established this past weekend.  That means that, on a team of 79 swimmers, we’ve had an incredible 357 Personal Records set so far this year!  I generally consider a season with 500 personal records to be very successful – I think we are on track to blow that standard away.  Here are the rest of these PRs:

• Sophomore Steven Shaw had an amazing meet with two huge PRs in the middle distance freestyle events. In the 500 Free, he cut 28.96 seconds from his PR, and in the 200 Free, he cut 10.03 seconds from his PR.  Those swims were good enough for 13^th and 14^th overall, respectively.  Given the number of teams in the meet, that means that Steven scored a lot of points for us on Saturday.
• There are some swimmers who, after I watch how they practice each day, they give me particular joy with their improvement – the kind of swimmer that works hard and keeps a smile on their face. Monica Byers is one of those swimmers, so I was really pleased to watch her get another PR in the difficult 200 IM on her way to a 12^th place overall finish.  Her last 50 was particularly good when she caught and passed a girl from Collegiate School.  The training really paid off – great swimming Monica!
• Senior Jonathan Rosato is working his way closer to a state cut in 100 breaststroke with another PR, this one by .58 seconds. As he got tired, I could see him significantly shorten his glide which probably slowed him down a bit.  This is the thing to concentrate on to get his next PR.  He swam the event as well as I’ve ever seen him swim it.  Jonathan also cut 4.10 seconds from his 200 IM PR and his 50 Free PR by .39 seconds.
• 7^th grader Claire Kenna continues to amaze me with her swimming. Her PR this week in 100 Free leaves her only .03 seconds from breaking 1:05, an extremely good time for a 7^th  Her time is the 5^th fastest currently on the team behind only a pair of juniors and a pair of seniors.
• And fellow 7^th grade girl Nicolette Smith lowered her 50 Free PR by another .64 seconds to continue her march toward a sub-30 second 50 Free. It’s just a matter of time now, I think.
• 7^th grader Cris Salas rocked this weekend with 3 PRs! He lowered his 100 Back PR by 3.51 seconds, his 50 Free PR by 2.62 seconds and his 50 Back PR leading off a relay by .80 seconds
• 7^th grader Steven Britten is showing me signs that he can be really good in the future. The way he pulls all the way through on his freestyle is just one of many indications that he is listening in practice – and the results are showing.  Steven cut another 5.46 seconds from his 100 Breast PR and another 2.30 second PR in 50 Free.  I was standing next to Coach Jamie Smith, who told me that Steven was really working hard this past week.
• 7^th grader Ryan Pugh had a really big meet with two very large PRs. In the 100 Free, Ryan lowered his PR by 13.61 seconds, and in the 50 Free, he lowered his PR by 4.82 seconds.  Those are big drops.  After his race in the 50 Free, Ryan asked me what he should have done when he swallowed a bunch of water.  I told him he did exactly the right thing – just keep pushing as hard as you can and worry about little things like breathing later!
• I just knew that when I put Freshman Joe Kosten in the 200 Free he would hit a big PR, and he certainly made good on that suspicion. The last time he swam it was last season.  On Saturday, he swam it 32.01 seconds faster!  He also cut another 1.63 seconds from his 100 Breaststroke to go 1:14.06, a pretty good time for a freshman.
• Freshman Patrick Koehr is one of those young swimmers who can swim all four (4) strokes well, and he proved it again with a 1.81 second PR in the 200 IM. Anyone else noticing how often I’m mentioning progress with the freshman boys?  They are really doing well this season.
• Senior Captain Brendan Koehr continues to progress toward those State and National Catholic cuts in 50 Free. On Saturday, he cut another .10 seconds from his 50 Free PR.
• Bernadette Wunderly sure had a nice swim in the 200 Free when she lowered her PR by 3.62 seconds.
• Mikey Wittlinger continues to improve. She also had a big PR in the 200 Free, cutting 4.51 seconds from her previous best time.
• How about 7^th grader Meggie Vestermark’s 100 Free! She cut another 3.57 seconds from her PR, and her time is starting to get into the range where I’d expect her to begin scoring for Seton next season.
• Theresa Verry lowered her 50 Free PR by another .29 seconds, continuing her progress toward a sub-30 50 Free.
• Senior Matthew Verry cut .67 seconds from his PR in 200 Free. He also scored for us in 100 Breaststroke.  Matthew has proven to be a very versatile swimmer for Seton.
• Fiona Seoh lowered her 100 Breast PR by .11 seconds. At our next meet, I’ll be looking for her to turnover faster and get another PR in 50 Free.
• Ali Salas had a great swim in 100 Free, cutting her PR by 2.34 seconds. With more practice, I think she has the potential to go even faster.
• Rose Remington was all smiles after she lowered her 100 Breaststroke PR by 2.99 seconds and her 50 Free PR by 1.37 seconds.
• And older sister Mary Remington also showed that she is rapidly improving. Mary cut 2.53 seconds from her 100 Free PR and 1.02 seconds from her 50 Free PR.
• Peter Quinan was great in the 100 Free when he swam a PR time by 1.52 seconds.
• Michaela Pennefather had a good meet. In the 50 Free, she swam a .88 second PR.  She also did a very nice job in her first attempt at 100 Backstroke.
• Ann Pennefather had a broken finger, but that didn’t stop her from swimming a personal record in 100 Back. You can tell that she’s an athlete by the way she powers through the water.  I think Ann can be really good for Seton.
• Paul Pechie cut a ton off of his 100 Free – a 3.99 second PR is a very good swim.
• 7^th grader Meghan O’Malley had a great 2 PR day. She cut 3.53 seconds from her 100 Breast PR and 1.76 seconds from her 50 Free PR.  Her finish was text book.  I can see that Meghan is going to be scoring a lot of points for Seton in the future.
• Nice work James Mosimann! Your times are starting to get very competitive, especially after you cut 4.20 seconds from your 100 Free PR and 1.14 seconds from your 50 Free PR.
• Tommy Moore is really seeing the benefit of his hard work at practice. On Saturday, he dropped 4.66 seconds from his best time in 100 Free, and he dropped .13 seconds from his best time in 50 Free.
• Sally Marrazzo, did you really cut 43.60 seconds from your 500 Free PR? After watching your freestyle in practice, I just know you can be very good at this event.
• Luke Marrazzo continues to improve. On Saturday, he lowered his PR in 500 Free by .85 seconds.  He also lowered his 100 Back PR by .14 seconds and his 100 Free PR leading off a relay by .82 seconds.
• 7^th grader Geni Lucas is breaking into the top ranks of the 7^th grader girls with her continued improvement. This week, she dropped another 2.52 seconds from her 100 Free PR and another .14 seconds from her 50 Free PR.  After her 100 Free, Coach Lowell told me that “you could see from the getgo that she was on it!”
• Great work Xavier Holl! That 7.64 second PR is 100 Free was huge!  You also had a nice .33 second PR in the 50.
• Michael Hill is showing that he can swim more than just breaststroke when he cut his 100 Fly PR by 1.43 seconds.
• Pat Hilleary just continues to show dramatic improvement this season. On Saturday, he cut nearly a full second from his 50 Free PR, again!
• Keziah Higginbottom has consistently impressed me this season with her quite determination in both practice and in the meets. That’s why I was so pleased to see her swim a .37 second PR in 100 Back.
• Sarah Heim broke onto the Varsity this year and is making the most of the opportunity. She lowered her PR in 50 Free by 1.54 seconds and her PR in 100 Breast by another .52 seconds.  Sarah is scoring regularly for us this season.
• 7^th grader Emily Heim is approaching the 30 second barrier in 50 Free. On Saturday, she cut another 1.84 seconds, which is a bunch for a single meet, to go 30.41.  I predict she’ll break :30 before the end of the season.
• Patrick Hall looked ready for action marching up to the blocks after the National Anthem on Saturday. And his “game face” really worked – he cut 2.20 seconds from his 50 Free PR!
• Kenneth Cuomo really looked good during his 100 Free so it was no surprise that his time was 4.47 seconds lower than his previous best.
• 8^th grader Tim Costello sure had a good meet. He cut 3.26 seconds from his 50 Free PR and .71 seconds from his 100 Free PR.  Coach Van de Voorde was very pleased with Tim’s performance.
• Good swimming this weekend Michael Collins! You dropped 1.64 seconds from you 100 Free PR and .56 seconds from your 50 Free PR.
• 7^th grader William Arnold had a great swim in the 50 Free – he cut 1.16 seconds from his PR in the event.

 

Other Great Performances

There were a lot of other great swims this past weekend also:

• Junior Hugh Brien did a great job in his first-ever 200 IM. I’ve said it before, but man I wish we would have had him on the team a few years ago!
• Lucy Bennett had a very nice swim in the 500 Free, finishing 11^th overall and scoring a lot of points for our team. I really appreciate Lucy’s versatility.  As a coach, you always need swimmers that can go into the most difficult events and get the job done for you.  Lucy is one of those swimmers.
• Freshman Patrick Koehr is another one of those swimmers. In our two competitive meets this season, Patrick has taken on both the 200 IM and the 500 Free and scored for us every time.
• And the current prototype for all-purpose swimmer on our team is Leslie Zapiain, who can score in any event – and usually does!
• I was very pleased with Rachel Lambrecht’s swim in the 200 IM where she placed 8^th Rachel also placed 5^th overall in 100 Breaststroke, so she scored a lot of points for us on Saturday.
• I didn’t remember that Monica Mosimann had been sick when I entered her into the 200 IM, but she took on the challenge and scored for the team. Nice work Monica.
• I’ve been lining up a 7^th-grade-girls-only 200 Medley and 200 Free Relays just to see what will happen, and I continued to be amazed:
  • In the 200 Medley Relay, Claire Kenna, Emily Heim, Nicolette Smith and Jillian Ceol beat their relay PR by nearly 4 seconds and swam a time that would have placed 10^th In a meet as fast as this one was, that is really good!
  • And in the 200 Free Relay, Geni Lucas, Jillian Ceol, Nicolette Smith and Claire Kenna beat their PR by nearly a second to swim a time that would have been 11^th Looking at the splits, I think that relay can go at least another 4 seconds faster than they did.  With age will come the discipline to put in your best personal effort every time you hit the water – and that’s when these girls can really become special.
• Shannon Kerns looked very “long and strong” (as former Coach Pat Mulhern used to say) in her 50 Free. Better practice attendance and I think Shannon could be a real player for us.
• Fiona Miller had the best dive from the blocks that I’ve seen her do. Sally Marrazzo also has a greatly improved dive.

The Seton Alumni Can Still Swim!

This was our homecoming meet, so we ran some very exciting alumni relays for the 200 Medley and 200 Free relays.  It was fun to watch our alumni race against our current relays, and some of the results were surprising:

• We’ve talked about how good our girls 200 Medley and 200 Free relays are, but could they hang with Seton graduates that are currently swimming in college? The answer was a definite yes, and it wasn’t because our alumni girls were not awesome.  In the 200 Medley, we put together an alumni relay with
  • Jessica Dunn, current team record holder in 100 Back and Division I swimmer at St. Francis
  • Mary Kate Kenna, former team record holder and current swimmer at St. Vincent
  • Lea Mazzoccoli, former team record holder and current coach at Curl-Burke and Seton
  • Carolyn Claybrooks, former DAC MVP and current swimmer with Mary Kate at St. Vincent

Our alumni relay swam had a great swim to take 2^nd overall versus this powerhouse girl’s teams, but the only relay that beat them was Seton’s!  Their splits were very good – Jessica went 29.43 in 50 Back, MK went 32.84 in 50 Breast, Lea went 28.47 in 50 Fly and Carolyn had the best split I’ve ever seen from her for a 50 Free at 25.58.

For the 200 Free relay, we swapped Kelly (Koehr) Mooney for Lea Mazzoccoli.  Kelly was part of Seton’s first girls State Championship basketball team back in 2005, but earlier in her high school career, she swam.  Again, there was no line-up that was going to beat our current relay, but our alumni girls swam a time that would have been good for 4^th overall in the meet.

• The boys alumni 200 Medley Relay faired a bit better against our current relays, but having former All-American, former state record holder in the 200 IM, and current Virginia Tech swimmer Nevin Cook split 24.31 in 50 Fly had something to do with that. I was watching Nevin swim – he only took 6 strokes in the first 25 yards.  And Believe it or not, Nevin recently broke :54 seconds in 100 Breaststroke – no, that was not a typo – Nevin has gone :53 high in 100 Breaststroke!  The alumni that joined Nevin were no slackers either.  Former Seton swimmer-coach and captain Connor Cook led off with a 28.35 backstroke split, Daniel Koehr popped a very fast 29.01 50 Breast split and the old man of the group, Ray Bennett (a married graduate of Virginia Tech) surprised all of us with an anchor split of 24.18!   That’s faster than the National Catholic cut.  Back in the day, Ray swam 50 Free in 23.48 (believe it or not, I didn’t even have to look that time up – I still remember it).  The most amazing thing about how these last three swam is that none of them have been in the water for almost a year, and Ray probably hasn’t been in the water for several years.  Daniel hadn’t even been out of the car for more than 5 minutes when he swam.

At some Homecoming Meet in the future, I’d love to get our other two Seton All-Americas, Kevin Koehr (100 Back) and Jameson Hill (100, 200 and 500 Free) to join Nevin and Ray Bennett or Sean Koehr or Daniel Koehr for a sort of all-time greatest alumni relay.  Jamo is busy tearing up the SEC at the University of Georgia where he was the SEC Freshman athlete of the week several weeks ago and where he recently went 4:19 in the 500 Free, and Kevin is up at Ft. Drum, NY doing final training before heading to Afghanistan later in January  as an officer with the Army’s 10^th Mountain Division.

In the 200 Free Relay, 2010 graduate Andrew Minarik stepped in as the anchor leg, and if the split was correct, swam the best split of his life!  Andrew always did swim well on very little practice 😉  Andrew was unable to get into college after he left Seton, so he was forced to attend Ohio State where I hear he is doing very well.

Practices Over Christmas Break

This coming week, the entire team will have the normal practice on Monday and Tuesday, December 20^th and 21^st.  Then starting with practice on Thursday, December 23^rd, the schedule and the location will change.  For that Thursday the 23rd, plus the Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Monday Jan 3^rd, the Varsity Team only will practice at the Jeff Rouse Aquatic Center (JRAC), the home of QDD Swimming.  QDD is the USA Team coached by Coach Rick Benner – a lot of Seton’s top swimmers swim there.  The pool is in Georgetown South at 9446 Taney Road, Manassas, VA 20110 near the intersection of Wellington Rd and Grant Avenue.  Coach Benner is generously allowing us to practice there for free.

And the schedule will be a bit different to allow you more sleep!  Stretching will begin at noon and dryland will end at 1:30 p.m.

I will coach practices at Freedom on Monday and Tuesday, Dec 20^th and 21^st at Freedom and December 23^rd and January 3^rd at JRAC.  Because I will be out of town the week after Christmas, the captains will coach practices at JRAC on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday, Dec 27^th, 28^th and 30^th.  Naturally, some assistant coaches will be there to help, but I think this is a good leadership development opportunity, so I like to do this every year.   Because there are only 5 lanes at JRAC, these practices are primarily for Varsity swimmers (kids who score in the meets), and they are optional for non-varsity swimmers that swim with Coach Kosten or Coach Claybrooks.  I expect all Varsity swimmers to attend these Christmas practices if you are in town and not already attending Christmas practices for a USA team.  If you attend, you will receive an extra practice point.

Our next meet will be the first annual Northern Virginia Catholic High School Championship at the Freedom Center on Saturday, January 8^th.  It will be another great meet with Bishop O’Connell, Bishop Ireton, Paul VI and several other Catholic schools in the northern half of Virginia.  I’ll post a meet announcement shortly.

Have a Merry Christmas, and I’ll see you swimmers at practice.

Coach Koehr