Dear Middle School Swim Team Parents,

 

Despite one of the coldest mornings of the year and the need to be at school on a Saturday 30 minutes before school normally starts during the week, it was certainly worth it.  In celebration of Coach Via's birthday and Coach Regan's official STC coaching debut, the boys had a fantastic opening meet of this 2024-2025 season.  There is certainly strength in numbers, and we proved today that we have the numbers and the quality to go with it, which is going to make us a tough team to beat this season.  More on the scores later as that is not our primary focus at a meet.

 

I enjoy rattling off all the improvement the boys make each meet, but there is a lot more behind the numbers.  The coaches have been impressed by the hard work the boys put in each day and are excited to see the end-of-season version of each boy should they continue that work ethic through February.  We had just 3 days back this week, and a partial day on Friday due to Varsity diving cutting our practice a little short, but the boys got everything they could out of that time.  Performance anxiety, like stagefright for the theatre folks, is not uncommon with swimming.  You are the only one in your lane and there are a lot of people watching you, unlike a cross country race or a soccer game where you can blend in a bit with others.  As such, I would like to commend Camden Stanley, who sat out the intrasquad meet, and Tristan Dunston, who was on the fence about competing today, for their effort in competing today.  It was great to have them out there in order to give us our full set of 200 Free Relays and have everyone on the team in the pool in the same heat.  I don't know if that has ever happened before in our team's 21+ year history.  On top of that, they both logged personal bests in both individual events and both almost did it again in their 200 Free Relay splits.  Camden dropped a second and a half in his 50 Free and then 3 off his 50 Breast later in the meet.  Tristan had the biggest drops for our team today with a 12-second drop in his 50 Breast and a 5-second drop in his 50 Free, despite not hearing the start.  He may have had a 6 or 7-second drop had he heard the start more clearly.  These were just 4 of the 23 personal bests earned today.

 

Of those 23 personal bests, 7 were relay splits and almost everyone earned at least one best time, with 14 of 16 boys accomplishing that feat.  In fact, 7 boys had 2 personal bests and 1, Patrick Santangelo, had 3 personal bests, continuing his streak of only earning personal bests every time he has swum this season (time trials, intrasquad meet, and today's meet).  Patrick dropped a few seconds off his 100 Free and broke 30 for the first time in the 50 Free with his relay split.  His 200 Free was technically an 18-second PR, although that previous time was a bit dated.  Blake Reed had similar success to Patrick as he dropped almost 4 seconds in the 200 Free and over 5 in the 100 Free.  Other substantial drops came from Braxton Moore in the 50 Back (3 seconds), James Pickren in his 50 Free relay split (2.5 seconds), and Daniel Basmajian and Lowndes Peple in the 50 Fly (1.5 seconds each).  I also want to give a shout out to Max Dyshlevyi who had quite a morning.  He swam a personal best in the 50 Back leading off the winning medley relay team, then immediately swam the 200 Free with no rest due to it being combined with the girls (and he won by the way), then threw up from the quick back-to-back events, then had a near-personal best and sub-1:00 time in the 100 Free (runner up), and then helped our A team win another relay in the 200 Free Relay, swimming one of the middle legs.  That is commitment right there!

 

As I mentioned earlier, our quantity combined with quality made this a big win to open up the season.  We had 346 points, compared to 2nd place St. Edward's with 183 and 3rd place Collegiate with 146.  You could even combine those 2nd and 3rd place scores and they still could not beat us today!  If we scored more than 2 relays and 3 individuals per team, it would have been a wider margin of victory for us due to our depth.  Along with both medley and free relay wins, we had 3 individual wins: Max Dyshlevyi (200 Free), George Estill (50 Back), and Christian Smith (50 Breast).  This trio each snagged a runner-up finish as well with Max in the 100 Free, George in the 100 IM, and Christian in the 50 Free.  Charlie Johnson (50 Breast) and Blake Reed (200 Free) also had runner-up individual finishes.  We went 1-2-3 in the 200 Free, 2-3-4 in the 100 IM, and 1-2-4-(5)-(6) in the 50 Breast, our 3 most dominant events on the day.  George turned in the only two "elite performances" on the day with his 100 IM and 50 Back.  He ranks 23rd all-time for STC MS swimmers in the 50 Back and 15th all-time in the 100 IM.  We did have some close calls in several other events, including Christian Smith in the 50 Breast and George in the 50 Free with his 200 Free Relay leadoff leg.  Splits do not count for elite performances unless they are the leadoff leg of a relay.

 

In terms of our 5 team goals...

1 - sportsmanship - I think we could be more active on this by telling neighboring swimmers good luck and staying in the water after events and shaking hands.

2 - no missed events - We had a few close calls in the 50 Free, but we did make it through the meet without a "no show".

3 - no DQs - We actually had one as someone left early in our D 200 Free Relay.

4 - team support - This was great today in that open area behind the blocks.  We don't have as much space behind the blocks at St. Catherine's, so this will have to shift to the side or shallow end of the pool at our home meets.

5 - earn personal bests - With 23 of them across the team, we certainly succeeded here.