On Saturday, down at St. Michael the Archangel High School in Fredericksburg, the Seton boys and girls teams won our 18th straight conference title. We also won 19 of the 48 individual medals (40%), won 4 of the 6 relays, and had 16 swimmers recognized as All-Conference. Not a bad afternoon’s work as we prepare to send 25 swimmers and divers to next weekend’s State Championship meet at the Freedom Center in Manassas.
Here’s how the final scores shook out for the top scoring teams:
Girls
Seton School 497
Fredericksburg Academy 317
Highland 246
St. Michael the Archangel 214
Fredericksburg Christian 202
Wakefield 128
Wakefield Country Day 67
Randolph-Macon Academy 36
Boys
Seton School 512
St. Michael the Archangel 306
Randolph-Macon Academy 248
Fredericksburg Academy 221
Fredericksburg Christian 165
Wakefield 149
Wakefield Country Day 140
Highland 91
Congratulations to the other teams of the DAC. There’s been a lot of improvement on the part of some of the schools, particularly St. Michael the Archangel, Fredericksburg Academy, Randolph-Macon and Highland. We’re going to really need to watch out for the St. Michael the Archangel boy’s team next year! They’ve been particularly good at building their young swim program.
Vincent “Catfish” Dunn Breaks DAC Conference Record
I can’t believe I missed it, but last week at the VISAA Division II Invitational Championship, Catfish Dunn broke Nevin Cook’s 2008 100 Fly record when he bested Nevin’s 54.04 with a very fast 53.90. For those of you who weren’t around in 2008, I hope you had a chance to see Nevin in the water at our Homecoming Invitational where he was home from his training with Virginia Tech. I only say that to highlight the level of Vincent’s accomplishment. Nevin Cook records do not go down easily – congratulations Vincent “Catfish” Dunn for cementing your legacy as one of Seton’s all-time greats!
2012 All-Conference Swimmers from Seton
All swimmers who finished in the top 3 in an individual event or the top 1 in a relay event are designated as All-Conference. Of the possible 72 All-Conference spots, Seton had 16 swimmers claim 36 of them! That’s nearly 50%! Here are the members of the DAC All-Conference Team from Seton:
| Seton All-Conference Swimmers | |
| 4-Time All-Conference
· Alex Doonis · Vincent “Catfish” Dunn · Cat Rogers · Claire Kenna 3-Time All-Conference · Patrick Koehr 2-Time All-Conference · Michael Hill · Joe Kosten · David Lambrecht · Luke Marrazzo · Alexandra Sinner |
1-Time All-Conference
· Lucy Bennett · Hugh Brien · Emily Heim · Keziah Higginbottom · Peter Quinan · Kimberly Rector · Alexandra Sinner |
The Race of the Day – Boys 500 Free
There were many great races on Saturday, but none as exciting as the boys 500 Free. I had lined up 4 of our boys (Steven Shaw, Peter Quinan, David Lambrecht and Patrick Koehr) who all practice together and all had approximately the same time. Going into the event, the four of them were seeded 1, 2, 4, and 5, and I told them that what I cared about most was that the 3rd seed got 5th place. Well that happened, but that wasn’t the big story. The big story was how hard they all raced and how close it was at the finish.
Patrick Koehr, who was clearly a little excited about the race, took it out the fastest, with a 30.06 split and held a 1.5 or 2 body-length lead over the field for the entire first 450 yards. Steven, Peter and David were neck-and-neck behind the 3rd seed for most of the race until they started to make their move at the 400 yard mark. I could quickly seed that the 3rd seed from St. Michael the Archangel was going to get 5th, but who was going to get 1st through 4th? With 50 yards to go, Peter Quinan and David Lambrecht really started to make a move, and coming off the last turn, I wasn’t sure if Patrick was going to be able to hang on. I could see that Patrick was paying the price for the fast start, but he wasn’t going to go down without a fight. As they came to finish, Patrick Koehr held on for gold with a 20 second PR! Peter Quinan took silver only .29 seconds behind Patrick and David Lambrecht took the bronze only .20 seconds behind Peter! Three swimmers in a 500 yard race all finishing within 1 second? Wow it was fun to watch. Both Peter and David had huge PRs, beating their previous best times by 7.23 seconds and 16.67 seconds respectively. Steven Shaw delivered the Seton sweep by taking 4th place with his 1.97 second PR.
DAC Conference Champions
Besides 4 out of the 6 relay championships (see below), Seton had 4 individual conference champions who won a total of six (6) conference championships:
- Alex Doonis tried a pair of events that we don’t normally see her swim, the 200 and the 500 Free, and she totally dominated in both swims, taking both gold medals by wide margins. Alex won the 200 Free by more than 18 seconds and she won the 500 Free by almost 26 seconds, swimming very close to record times in both events. Alex will move back to the sprints for the State Championship this weekend – I expect to see her place very highly. With her two relay wins, Alex brought home 4 gold medals on Saturday!
- Vincent “Catfish” Dunn also won two individual gold medals in the 100 Fly and 100 Back. His race in fly was close for 75 yards, but his superior conditioning and the force of his will was too much for the RMA swimmer who would eventually be elected by the coaches as the Swimmer of the Meet (huh?). Oh well, we all knew that, as the only male swimmer with more than 1 gold medal (Catfish had 4 gold medals!), he was definitely our Swimmer of the Meet.
- Cat Rogers took home 3 gold medals and a silver medal including the gold in 50 Free and the silver in 100 Breaststroke. In the 50 Free, Cat was completely dominate, winning the sprint by more than 2 seconds.
- Patrick Koehr, a sophomore and the only non-senior champion, took home three gold medals and a silver. Patrick won his individual gold with that 20 second PR in the 500 Free and the other three medals come in the 3 relays.
- Seton has traditionally been totally dominate in the relays – in fact, the last time that Seton lost a relay, any relay in any competition, to another DAC team was back in 2008 when a boys 200 Free Relay lost a relay to FA by .15 seconds! (It would probably not surprise those of you who know me well that I actually remember that race and how we got out-touched at the very end by only .15 seconds after having the lead for 195 yards) Well you knew that streak was going to have to end eventually, and it did on Saturday. In spite of that, I was still very pleased with the 4 relay gold medals that we did win:
- We started the meet with a big win by our boys 200 Medley Relay of Vincent “Catfish” Dunn, Michael Hill, Hugh Brien, and Patrick Koehr who won by almost 3 seconds over a greatly improved St. Michael the Archangel.
- And then our girls 200 Medley Relay of Alex Doonis, Cat Rogers, Alexandra Sinner, and Claire Kenna took a big lead in the first 100 and never let it get competitive after that, ultimately winning by more than 7 seconds!
- Our boys 200 Free Relay of Joseph Kosten, Patrick Koehr, Luke Marrazzo, and Vincent “Catfish” Dunn had a closer race on their hands when RMA came to play, but Seton ultimately prevailed. Everyone swam well, but our backend was particularly good. I have never seen Luke Marrazzo swim so well, and his 24.74 split was proof of it. He was a beast off the blocks and handed a small lead to Catfish who’s 22.77 split sealed the deal by 1.68 seconds.
- Our Girls 200 Free Relay wasn’t even close – we won by 7.23 seconds which was something like ¾s of a pool length. Alex Doonis, Claire Kenna, Alex Sinner and Cat Rogers look primed for two top 8 relay finishes at States.
More Medals for Seton
We also won an awful lot of silver and bronze on Saturday, including these medals that I have not previously mentioned:
- She’s only an 8th grader, but Claire Kenna left St. Michael with 2 relay gold medals and 2 individual silver medals. Her 100 Free was particularly good. She cut 2.06 seconds from her PR to go 1:01.48 – an very fast time for an 8th Her other silver was in the 50 Free where she beat all comers except teammate Cat Rogers.
- Luke Marrazzo added a silver medal in the 200 Free to his relay gold in the 200 Free Relay with another tremendous swim. Luke lowered his 200 Free PR by another 1.26 seconds. The last couple weeks of practice have been very fruitful for Luke.
- Lucy Bennett took the silver medal by more than 13 seconds over her nearest non-Seton competitor with a very strong swim. Lucy was beating her FA competitor by 4.5 seconds after the first 50 yards, and she never let up after that.
- Michael Hill had a close race on his hands in 100 Breast, but he would not be denied the silver medal. 2nd through 4th place all finished within .45 seconds with Michael prevailing among that group. Patrick Pennefather was in the hunt in that race and took 4th place by only .06 seconds.
- Alexandra Sinner was not feeling particularly well, but she powered through the 200 IM anyway and took a silver medal behind only the eventual Swimmer of the Meet. Alex will be swimming this event at States, and I hoping she can swim well enough to score for us by coming back for the finals on Friday night.
- David Lambrecht just continues to get better, and his 2 bronze medals was just more evidence. I think he swam a PR in every swim this season except for one, and Saturday was no different. We already talked about his bronze medal and PR in the 500 Free, but he also swam a PR and earned a bronze medal in the 200 Free where he cut another 3.94 seconds from his previous best.
- 8th grader Emily Heim discovered that she’s a lot more than just a breaststroker when her 1.20 second PR in 100 Freestyle was good enough for the bronze medal! Emily will be going into next season as our 3rd faster 100 Freestyler after that great swim.
- Keziah Higginbottom has been steadily improving in 100 Fly and that continued on Saturday. She swam .73 seconds than her previous best and that was good enough for the bronze medal!
- Joe Kosten’s04 second PR took him to the bronze medal from the 4th seed in the 200 IM. Joe will return next season as one of our top swimmers.
- Kimberly Rector was suffering from a rib injury but felt able to jump into the 100 Breaststroke. Even injured, Kimberly was able to swim a .94 second PR to take a bronze medal behind Cat Rogers and the eventual swimmer of the meet.
More Personal Records
Here are the rest of the 25 Personal Records we had on Saturday:
- Lucy Bennett had a great lead off leg in the girls 400 Free Relay when she cut her 100 Free PR by .45 seconds. She’ll get one final chance at this event for her senior appearance at States this coming weekend.
- Kevin Bliss cut .01 seconds from his personal record in 100 Free and took 7th place overall in a very fast event.
- Hugh Brien’s butterfly has gotten to be like a stroke video and the result of his outstanding technique was 4th place and another PR, this time by .46 seconds.
- Michael Hill also cut 3.50 seconds from his personal record in 100 Fly which was good enough for 7th place in the event.
- Brian Koehr finished his season very strong with yet another personal record in the 200 IM, lowering his previous best by another 1.92 seconds.
- Joseph Kosten led off our gold medal 200 Free relay with a 25.36, .49 seconds faster than his previous best from a standing start.
- Luke Marrazzo was not done with his PR in 100 Free leading off the 400 Free relay and his PR in the 200 Free, he also had a PR in his 4th place finish in the 100 Free where he cut .58 seconds and broke 57 seconds for the first time.
- Freshman Paul Pechie jumped into the 50 Free and made the most of it, swimming .83 seconds faster than ever before.
- Jude Van de Voorde was a happy guy on Saturday, and so was I! He cut his 100 Breaststroke PR by 3.52 seconds, an amazing amount of improvement for only one week. But what is really amazing is that last week, he cut 3.39 seconds! That means that in 2 consecutive meets, he lowered his Breaststroke PR by a total 6.91 seconds. His time is now down to 1:17.36 which is a pretty good time for a freshman.
- Theresa Verry certainly made the most of her opportunity to swim Varsity. On Saturday, she cut her 100 Breaststroke PR by another .78 seconds and her 100 Fly PR by .18 seconds. It certainly was a strong finish to her Junior season for Theresa.
- I just knew Joe Zapiain had it in him, and he finally let it out. In the 50 Free, Joe dropped an incredible 2.48 seconds to go 26.93, a time that will probably land him on several of our relays next season. It was great to see him finally figure out what he is capable of.
Post-Season Championship Qualifiers
Well, I’ve been able to finalize our State Championship team for next weekend. The final entries are in – I have them posted under Meet & Team Information, In the end, we’ll have 25 swimmers and divers competing for Seton, including:
| Girls State Team | Boys State Team | |
| · Cat Rogers
· Alex Doonis · Alexandra Sinner · Claire Kenna · Kimberly Rector · Emily Heim · Lucy Bennett · Sarah Blanchard · Jillian Ceol · Mikey Wittlinger · Monica Byers · Sarah Zapiain, Diving · Keziah Higginbottom, Diving · Mary Duran, Diving |
· Vincent “Catfish” Dunn
· Michael Hill · Joseph Kosten, Swimming and Diving · Patrick Koehr · Luke Marrazzo · Steven Shaw · Hugh Brien · Tommy Flook · Patrick Pennefather · Joe Duran, Diving · Michael Manley, Diving
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“Everything You Need to Know About States” is also posted under Meet & Team Information. If you are on the team above, make sure that you and your parents read that document plus the Meet Announcement so you know what is going on. This is the most exciting event of the season, but there are an awful lot of logistics involved.
Taking a look at the competition, we have a shot at our 5th straight girls Division II State Championship, but it is far from a sure thing this year. Hampton Roads Academy and Nansemond-Suffolk Academy are going to bring very strong teams, so if we want to win, we’re all going to have to swim personal records – especially the relays! We should have an advantage if our divers can score some points because HRA and NSA don’t have diving teams – so let’s go divers!
And to all of the spectators: make sure you arrive early, because seating is at a premium for this very exciting event. You may especially want to come to hear Sarah Zapiain sing the National Anthem for the Friday night Finals and Rose Remington sign the Anthem for the Saturday morning Prelims. It should be great fun!
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Two more days of practice in the water – let’s come ready to work.
See you at practice!
Coach Koehr