We had another great meet down at Woodberry Forest last Saturday. Our boys team swam against Woodberry Forest, who has won the State Championship 7 times since 1996, and Flint Hill in Vienna. Our girls swam against Flint Hill only since Woodberry is an all boys school. The results against Woodberry were somewhat predictable, but we really had our way with Flint Hill. Here are the final results::
Girls
Seton: 113
Flint Hill: 59
Boys
Seton: 52
Flint Hill: 39
Seton: 32
Woodberry: 60
At this meet, the girls events went first, and what an exciting start it was. Our girls medley relay was behind Flint Hill’s going in the Fly leg. Lea Mazzoccoli closed the gap some and then Katie Planchak hit the water with 2 body lengths to make up. By the turn, we suspected that Katie had a shot at catching her. I was standing next to the Flint Hill coach when Katie out-touched his final swimmer. He turned to me and said, “I’ve been coaching that girl [his anchor leg swimmer] for 4 years, and I’ve never seen her walked down from behind like that!”.
Much of the rest of the meet wasn’t that exciting, but we did have many excellent performances. Chief among them were another 34 PRs, including:
– Jessica Dunn in 200 Free, by 4.5 seconds and 100 Free by over 2 seconds
– Caitlin Harris in 200 Free
– Katie Planchak in 200 IM and 100 Free by over 1 second
– Connor Cook in 200 IM
– Danielle Smith in 50 Free and 100 Free
– Kirstin Kleb in 50 Free
– Katie Hoffer in 50 Free
– Sean Koehr in 50 Free, by over 1 second and 100 Breast
– Joe Ross in 50 Free by nearly 3 seconds and 100 Free by 4 seconds
– Geoff Ross in 50 Free by 1.5 seconds and 100 Free by 6 seconds
– David Harris in 50 Free by 3 seconds and 100 Breast by 9 seconds
– Lea Mazzoccoli in 100 Fly
– Kimberley Melnyk in 100 Fly
– Ali Van De Voorde in 100 Free by 7 seconds
– Katie Racine in 100 Free
– Tina Economou in 100 Free by 5 seconds
– Eileen Corkery in 100 Free by over 2 seconds
– Alex Hetrick in 100 Free
– Daniel Koehr in 100 Free
– Greg Bliss in 100 Free
– Billy Corkery in 500 Free by 15 seconds and 100 Back by 7 seconds
– Meghan Morch in 100 Back
– Katie Corkery in 100 Back
– Whitney Hood in 100 Back
– Dan Quinan in 100 Back by 3 seconds
– Kristin Rafter in 100 Back
Here are a few other swims that caught my eye:
– The Boys medley was nearly as exciting, at least for a while. Both Kevin and Nevin beat Woodberry’s top guys in the first 2 legs of the relay. In the end however, Woodberry was just to much for us. They are a really strong team. The boys Medley beat Flint Hill by nearly 10 seconds.
– Geoff Ross is improving steadily. His streamline looked much better this past week.
– Hailey Moya swam the 500 Free for the very first time. She took out the first 50 in 33 seconds. Obviously, she wasn’t going to be able to keep that pace, but she really pushed through the race and did an excellent time.
– Billy Corkery and Caitlin Harris may have found a home in the 500 free. Caitlin is very good on the walls, and I liked to see Billy’s body dolphin off of each turn.
– Stephanie Melnyk was feeling sick after her 500 Free, but that didn’t keep her from swimming 100 back. Both of the Melnyk girls are uncommonly determined.
– John Verry’s 50 Free split in 200 Free relay was 3 seconds faster than his PR. You expect it to be a little faster because of the relay start, but not that much!
– Like the girls medley relay, we were behind Flint Hill going into the 3rd leg of the girls 400 Free relay. Meg Seale made up nearly 1/3rd a pool length in her relay leg to give Katie the lead. No one was going to walk Katie down.
– Katie Racine had an outstanding split in her 400 Free relay, 2 seconds faster than her PR
We had several more people swim State and National qualifying times for the first time this season:
Girls
– Jessica Dunn – State and National times in 100 Free and a National time in 200 Free
– Caitlin Harris – State times in 100 and 500 Free
– Katie Planchak – State and National times in 200 IM
– Kimberley Melnyk – State time in 100 Fly
– Melissa Dunn – State time in 200 IM
– Meg Seale – National time in 100 Free
Boys
– Sean Koehr – State time in 50 Free
While I was very pleased with most aspects of our performance, there were two things that upset me a bit:
- I was very disappointed to see so many swimmers sitting out in the lobby rather than cheering for their teammates. While you were out there, did you see any Woodberry guys? Correct answer: No, because they were cheering for their team.
- I can understand it if you are unable to attend the meet, especially if you are not a Varsity swimmer for that week, but in the future, I’d appreciate an e-mail by the Monday before the meet. Not only are meet sheets very time consuming to create and complicated to change, but if you are filling an lane, someone else may not ultimately get to swim.
And finally, there is one area where we should improve, but it is my fault that we have not been better. When the meet was over, the Woodberry guys all lined up to shake hands and our team was no where to be found. Not fun. I suppose it goes back to #1 above. We all need to stay in the pool area and cheer for our team until the end. Then, after the 400 Free relay gets out of the water, we should line up and congratulate the other team. Captains, please make this happen on Friday night.
This week’s meet is Friday night at Dale City Rec Center versus ECS and FCS. Be ready to stretch at 6:45 p.m. Captains, we need to hit the water at 7:00 exactly. Because of the late hour, I’ve only scheduled us for a 20 minute warm-up so there will be no time to waste.
Great job this past weekend. We’ve had some great practices so far this week. I’m looking forward to many PRs this coming weekend..
Coach Koehr