Olympians County Runner-Up
The El Paso Olympians amassed 2624 points at the Woodford County Championships, but still came up short against the Metamora Redbirds.
El Paso had four of the top five 8 and under girls as Maci Ehrhardt (1st), Olivia McCormick (2nd), Alyse Dohman (4th), and Madi Ehrhardt (5th) all made top six in the County. In the 8 and under boys, Declan Duley was the top scorer in the age group. For the 9-10 girls, Tristyn Grube was the only Olympian in the top six with her 3rd place finish. Will Pearson was also third, and Sebastian Meyer was sixth in the 9-10 boys. Ella Blair was second in the 11-12 girls. Ethan Faulk was fourth in the 11-12 boys. Lily Blair was the High Point winner in the 13-14 girls, Kaitlyn Ludwig was third and Hannah Kiefer was fourth. Jon Hasty was second, Connor Street was fourth, and Clayton Roberts was fifth in the 13-14 boys. Faith Johnson was third in the 15-18 girls. Coaches Alex and Max tied for fourth in the 15-18 and Peter Koos was sixth.
We had 82 PRs for the day and some of them were huge.
Nice meet Olympians!
Olympians Finish Dual Meet Season at 7-1
In a typical season the El Paso Olympians Swim Team competes against 11 different teams in dual meets. This year saw three of those meets cancelled, non of them for weather. The Eureka Meet was cancelled because they had pool problems; the Gridley Meet was cancelled because they double-booked the date; and the Dwight Meet was cancelled because of computer trouble. Without those three meets, the Olympians only had eight duals left on the schedule. Of the eight, the Olympians won seven of them, including tonight's contest against the Washington Water Jets. Washington brought more swimmers than any other team we hosted this summer (92) and combined with El Paso's 122 swimmers, it made for a long, but exciting meet. The Olympians managed to come out on top however with 859 points to Washington's 667. The only meet remaining in the 2013 season will be the Woodford County Championships this Saturday morning (warmups at 8am, meet at 9am) in Metamora.
119 PRs were earned, including three apiece by:
LeeAnn Broderick
Will Bushert
Myli Ehrhardt
Tristyn Grube
and Alex Wiegand.
Tristyn's PR in the short free earned her outright the 9-10 girls record, no longer having to share it with Sam Supan. Her PR in the long free brought her within one second of that record as well.
Two other records fell at the meet tonight: Max Klein re-set his 100 IM record, this time down to a 1:04.15, making it tougher for future swimmers to break. The other was the 8 and under girls medley relay record featuring: Madi Ehrhardt, Maci Ehrhardt, Olivia McCormick, and Alyse "ThunderKick" Dohman. They broke the record by a whole second.
Some swimmer may not have broke team records, but they crushed their Personal Records in their events:
Wyatt Hinds bested his breast by 13
Hanna Kuchenmeister was a late add to the IM, but she managed to take 17 seconds off.
Cody Langland took 16 seconds off his IM PR.
LeeAnn Broderick took 12 seconds off her fly.
Will Bushert took 7 seconds off both his free and his IM.
Nickelle Cummings took 19 seconds off her backstroke, and one of my favorites of the night...
Jocelyn Nelson took 34 seconds off her butterfly because she kept her hips up. She has been working hard all year to fix her sinking butterfly hips and she did an excellent job keeping them near the surface tonight- the 34-second PR shows what improved technique can do for time.
We also have a new inductee into the IM Club:
MaryBeth Wiegand, welcome to the club.
See everyone in the morning. Let's clean up those strokes before Woodford County.
Nice dual meet season, Olympians, but we still have one more meet to win...
Olympians Win!
The El Paso Olympians Swim Team has returned to their winning ways this evening after defeated the Flanagan Flyers in a dual meet. Several Olympians won their individual events, many for the first time this season. 35 Olympians combined to win 56 of 60 individual events. Tonight's event winners were:
Lane Dohman (long free)
Maci Ehrhardt (long free, breast)
Travis Gramm (long free)
Madison Rosenberger (long free
Gabriel Pfister (long free, IM)
Shelby Heffron (long free, IM)
Sarah Schug (long free, back)
Peter Koos (long free, short free)
Kayla Street (long free, breast)
Leyton Brown (IM)
Madi Ehrhardt (IM, fly)
Sebastian Meyer (IM, short free, back)
Michaela Kelly (IM)
Lilly Kreitzer (IM, breast)
Max Klein (IM, back)
Faith Johnson (IM)
Declan Duley (IM, short free, back)
Alyse Dohman (short free, back)
Tristyn Grube (short free, fly)
Jack Weber (short free, breast, fly)
Kain Jackson (short free)
Kassidy Johnson (short free, fly)
Sarah Finck (short free)
William Gilliland (breast)
Celestino Duley (breast)
Belle Harlan (breast)
Connor Street (breast, fly)
Alex Rhodes (breast, fly)
Hank Harlan (breast)
Collin McCormick (fly)
Lily Blair (fly, back)
Isabelle Kostelnick (back)
Ben Gensler (back)
Ella Blair (back)
Alex Klein (back)
In addition to the 56 individual wins, the Olympians also had 81 PRs. Sebastian Meyer, Sarah Schug, and Kassidy Johnson actually managed to earn three PRs for the evening. Sebastian was the only one to have a perfect night, with three PRs and three first place finishes.
Max Klein took back the IM record that Peter Koos took from Max Klein who took it from Alex Rhodes. It's going to come down to who swims it the fastest at Woodford County, but make sure you show up on Thursday against Washington when all three will go head to head for the record in our pool.
The 8 & Under boys re-arranged their line-up and re-broke the medley relay record: with Garrison Meyer, William Gilliland, Declan Duley, and Lane Dohman on the squad this time.
The 8&Under girls medley relay was within two seconds of the record tonight, hopefully they'll beat that record next Thursday at our last dual meet of the year (and last home meet). One member of that relay, Alyse Dohman, PRed in the backstroke tonight which puts her 1.01 seconds away from Lily Blair's 2008 8 & under backstroke record, will she get it before the end of the year or wait until next year when she turns 8?
Maureen Gensler, Aleksandria Boyd, and Morgan Render all joined the IM Club this evening; welcome ladies.
Some HUGE PRs at the meet tonight:
Tommy O'Brien dropped 18 in the breast (and did a legal kick for most of it)
Shelby Roberts dropped over three seconds off her IM, an unheard of amount for someone with her experience.
Madison Rosenberger will be moving up a lane when we sort by 50 free PRs because she took 17 seconds off her previous best (and won).
Michaela Kelly crushed her IM time by 18 seconds and took first place in one of the best swims of the night.
Kayla Faulk stepped up when five of our 13-14 girls got sick and took 13 seconds off her IM and nearly won the butterfly.
Hannah Gilliland took 27 seconds off her IM.
Lane Dohman almost cut his long free time in half by dropping 23 seconds from his time earlier this year.
Kelly Finck took seven seconds off her long free.
We got a few more folks to sign up for Woodford County Championships, although it doesn't look like we will make our goal of 100 swimmers, perhaps next year. It is not too late to sign up, entries are due tomorrow after practice. You may tell me what three your swimmer wants to swim and I'll register you via email if you prefer.
I'm waiting on emailed results for team scores. They had it set up on Championship scoring, so by their count we won 4333-1260. I'm going to rescore it based on our standard dual meet scoring setup (7-5-4-3-2-1 and 8-4-2) once I get the emailed results. It would take me all night to type in the paper results to re-score.
Records Fall, but so do Olympians
The El Paso Olympians had a meet for the record books tonight as seven records were broken out of 80 events. Three of those records were individual records: Peter Koos set both the 100 IM record and the 50 back record in the 15-18 boys age group. Tristyn Grube tied Sam Supan's 9-10 girls short free record with her impressive 14.31. Four relay records were also broken. The 15-18 boys continue to drop time as Alex Rhodes, Justin Skare, Max Klein, and Peter Koos dropped their 200 Medley Relay Record to 1:58.19 and their 200 free relay record to a 1:41.17. Six different 8 and under boys also made some new records as TJ Supan, Sam Bushert, Declan Duley and Lane Dohman combined to take out the Medley Relay, and William Gilliland, Garrison Meyer, joined Lane and Declan in the taking out of the free relay record.
Sadly, seven records weren't enough to outscore the talented Redbirds from Metamora. Metamora scored 838 points to El Paso's 736 to hand El Paso its first defeat of the 2013 season, bringing their record to 5-1. The dual meet season only has two meets left: Thursday, July 18th at Flanagan and Thursday July 25th home against Washington. Our final meet of the year will provide us an opportunity to avenge our loss to Metamora as we face them, Eureka, and Roanoke in the Woodford County Championship on July 27. Despite being a Saturday meet, it only takes about 3 hours, and will likely end by 1pm.
Metamora outscored the Olympians in three of the five age groups winning 9-10 (192 points to 128); 11-12 (189 to 125); and 15-18 (179 to 131). The Olympians won both the 8 and under age group (178 to 142) and the 13-14 age group (172 to 138). Factoring in gender, our best age group of the night were the 8 and under girls who scored 99 points for the team compared to Metamora's 61.
Will Gilliland not only broke a relay record, but also earned a PR in all three events he swam this evening. Fifteen other swimmers also pulled off the trifecta of three PRs: Bria Barker, Myli Ehrhardt, Will Bushert, Ben Gensler, Kristian Gensler, Travis Gramm, Charlie Hamilton, Valerie Hamilton, Belle Harlan, Dalton Jones, Cody Langland, Drew VanDorsten, Vera Rosenberger, Mitchell Uphoff, and Jaycie Schertz. Those 16 combined for 48 of our 159 PRs.
Mya Gramm and Valerie Hamilton joined the IM Club tonight.
Huge PRs were earned by:
Addy Brown: -13 in breast
Nickelle Cummings: -13 in short free
Jessi Finck: -12 in fly
Maureen Gensler: -11 in fly
Gabrielle Hamilton: -16 in back
Luke Reutter: -7 in both short free and fly
Morgan Render -16 in long free
Grace Skolek: -12 in IM
Kierstyn Wheatley: -6 in short free
Bria Barker: -12 in fly
Kristian Gensler: -29 in IM
Cody Langland: -7 in back
Vera Rosenberger: -11 in back
and Mitchell Uphoff -16 in breast.
Coaches will again be handing out Swimmer of the Meet Medals tomorrow morning at the
9 o'clock meeting. For those unable to attend those meetings the following were awarded Swimmer of the Meet for the Lexington Invitational:
Hank Harlan
Belle Harlan
Declan Duley
Garrison Meyer
and the unanimous coaches' choice: Tristyn Grube
The Swimmer of the Meet from Pontiac were:
Aleksandria Boyd
Kristian Gensler
Zander Johnson
and Alyse "ThunderKick" Dohman
Olympians Continue Trophy Streak
The El Paso Olympians Swim Team continued to earn trophies at their invitationals after a third place finish at the Lexington Invitational. Only Metamora and Clifton were able to outscore the Olympians. The Olympians earned 300 more points than last year and improved upon 2012's 5th place finish. Helping the Olympians were several swimmers who placed in the top six for High Points in their age groups:
In the 8 and under boys Declan Duley was first with a perfect score of 64, and Garrison Meyer was fifth with 36. In the 8 and under girls Maci Ehrhardt tied for fourth with 40 points, only three points away from making the medal stand.
In the 9-10 age group Tristyn Grube placed 6th with 41 points and Will Pearson placed 5th with 39 points.
In the 11-12 age group, Jack Weber earned 49 points for the Olympians, good enough for fourth place in his age group.
The 13-14 Girls age group was dominated by the Olympians as we placed three within the top six: Faith Johnson second with 49, Lily Blair third with 48, and Kaitlyn Ludwig sixth with 42.
Finally, Max Klein also made the top six with his 45 points earning a 6th place finish in the 15-18 age group.
The Olympians not only scored well, they swam well, as 73 PRs were earned throughout the long warm day. Leading the PR charge was first-year swimmer Tristyn Grube, who earned a PR in all four events in prelims, and then turned around and earned four MORE PRs in finals! The 8-PR Day has always been talked about but never actualized. Belle Harlan also had a perfect PR day as she improved in all four events. Michaela and Allison Kelly came really close as they both improved in three events, and had Michaela not swam an amazing backstroke at Leroy she would have had a four-PR day, nice job Allison and Michaela. Waylon Melick also managed a three PR day, as did Garrison Meyer, Hank Harlan, Collin McCormick, Taylor Langland, Will Pearson, Ella Newcomb, and Andrew Takantjas. Hank Harlan had the largest time dorp of the day, taking 48 seconds off his IM.
The Olympians had three swimmers win events: Max Klein took first in the short free, swimming the fastest 50 of all swimmers in the entire meet; Lily Blair won the 13-14 50 fly; and Declan Duley won all four of his events. Kaitlyn Ludwig and Tristyn Grube had the fastest shot free times going into finals, but were out touched at the last second.
Lexington Invitational
We took a few swimmers to Lexington yesterday and we came away with a third place trophy (out of 14 teams). Clifton and Metamora were the only two who scored more points. Speaking of Metamora, they will be coming to El Paso on Tuesday for a huge dual meet. Over 200 swimmers between the two teams will be racing for summer rec league supremacy, it may take 15 minutes longer than usual, but there will be some fast times and a lot of points scored.
Lexington said they would email results rather than let me take them on a flash drive, so I still do not have complete results to write up the official meet report. I know that we had a few swimmers place in the top three for high point awards: Declan Duley was first in the 8 and under, Lily Blair was third in the 13-14 girls, and Faith Johnson was second in the 13-14 girls. Faith also set a meet record in the 50 breast (which lasted for about 51 seconds as it was re-broke in the subsequent heat), and Declan Duley broke the IM record in the 8 and under boys, giving El Paso its second meet record (to join Danielle Ludwig's 13-14 long free record).
I also know that some kids had some fabulous PRs, and I believe Michaela Kelly had a four-PR day, among others. I'll more fully recognize those who improved when I have complete results.
Nice job, Olympians.
Reminder, Woodford County T-Shirt Order will be sent in tomorrow after practice.
You can register to swim at Woodford County all the way through this Friday. If we can get 100 swimmers to register, I have a special present for the team. We are currently at 40, so we need 60 more by Friday. They score all relays, so every fourth person who signs up within an age group means twenty more points. Metamora has won the meet the last two years, and will likely win again unless we take everyone. You get to swim whatever three events you want to swim, so find the clipboard this week and register.
775 PRs as Olympians Remain Undefeated in Pontiac
The El Paso Olympians faced their toughest competition of the dual meet season thus far as they traveled to the steamy indoor pool at Pontiac to race the Pacers. 90 swimmers from El Paso made the short trip and 75 PRs were earned at the meet. In addition, the Olympians came home with 846 points to outscore the 689 earned by the Pacers by 157 (the real challenge will be protecting that dual meet record next Tuesday against Metamora).
Aleksandria Boyd was honored by Coach Binga with the "Sportsmanship Award", a new award handed out each meet to the Olympian who showed both team spirit and good sportsmanship. One of the best parts of an indoor swim meet is how loud the cheering can get, and Aleksandria led a great team spirit effort tonight, she will get her award tomorrow morning at practice.
We also had some noteworthy massive PRs tonight in the meter pool:
Mary Rebbec took ten seconds off her IM
Alyse Dohman took 23 seconds off her long free
Will Bushert took 25 seconds off his backstroke
Zander Johnson took 41 seconds off his IM
Hannah Gilliland took 42 seconds off her long free,
but the most improved of the night was Kristian Gensler who took 34 seconds off his long free and 11 seconds off his breaststroke for a combined improvement of 45 seconds!
I'd like to welcome Logan Spray to the IM Club.
We also broke three new records tonight as Declan Duley had PRs in both long free (33.69) and IM (1:28.38). Max Klein one of the oldest records on the board, a 1994 Jeremy Gimbel record in the short free fell by one one-hundredth of a second (24.27). Congratulations Coach Max. Also a belated record breaker announcement to the 13-14 Girls Medley and Free Relays who broke both records at Leroy on Tuesday night. And a super belated congrats to Peter Koos who apparently took down the 15-18 backstroke record at the Pontiac Pentathlon.
On the relay front the 8 and under girls are the next closest age group to breaking a record as they are only two seconds away in the free relay and five seconds away in the medley. Also close are the 13-14 boys who only need to cut three more seconds in the medley to break both records this year (they already have the free). The 9-10 girls are six away in free and nine away in medley. The 8 and under boys are seven away in free and eight away in medley. The rest of the relays are more than ten seconds away from the record.
Only Metamora, Flanagan, and Washington remain on the dual meet calendar, so if those age groups are going to go for those records they only have those meets before those with summer birthdays age up at Woodford County.
Nice job tonight.
Olympians Surpass 1000 Points for first time in History
It takes a lot of first, second, and third places to amass over 1000 points in a standard dual meet [a perfect score (first, second, and third in every individual event AND relay) would be 1240] and the Olympians nearly pulled it off with their 1049 to 242 victory over the Replex Racers of Leroy. Olympians won 55 of 60 individual events and 18 of the 20 relays.
In addition to the wins, the Olympians also came home with 93 PRs. AJ Hepner joined the IM Club in a grand fashion, as he took first place in his first ever competition IM. Lukas Holderby crushed the 3:00 barrier with his 2:51, and Waylon Melick snuck 11 seconds closer to his 3:00 goal with his big PR in the IM, making the 8 and under boys IM one of our better events of the night, as those three also swept the scoring with their 1, 2, 3 finish. The Olympians managed to have seven other perfect races, in which we took first, second, and third place AND all three swimmers earned a PR in the event. In addition to the 8 and under boys 100 IM the following trios combined for the perfect race:
Event 2, 8 and under girls 50 free:
1st- Olivia McCormick (-1), 2nd- Valerie Hamilton (1st time swim), 3rd- Nellie Melick (-9)
Event 6, 11-12 girls 100 free:
1st- Allison Kelly (-9), 2nd- Payton Rarick (-4), 3rd- Mya Gramm (first time swim)
Event 46, 11-12 girls 50 breast:
1st- Sami Harlan (-3), 2nd- Dalton Jones (-0.4), 3rd- Allison Kelly (first time swim)
Event 51, 8 and under boys 25 fly:
1st- Garrison Meyer (-2), 2nd- Cody Langland (-12), 3rd- Lukas Holderby (-5)
Event 58, 13-14 girls 50 fly:
1st- Carly Miller (-2), 2nd- Kalli Meinhold (-0.3), 3rd- Sarah Schug (-1)
Event 60, 15-18 girls 50 fly:
1st- Lily Blair (-0.5), 2nd- Kaitlyn Ludwig (-0.04), 3rd- Jaiden Hornsby (-1).
It will be interesting to see how the El Paso Journal fits all these top three finishers in the paper this week; good luck, Coach!
In case you missed it earlier:
1. Eureka Invitational has been cancelled again, it will not be rescheduled.
2. Sign up for Woodford County shirts and events
2.1 Woodford County shirt sign up is due 7.15
2.2 Woodford County event sign up is due 7.19
3. Let me know if you will not be at Pontiac on Thursday evening. They will not be as flexible as Leroy was about having to change 11 swimmers on deck. It makes it more stressful on the coaches, the bullpen, the computer, and the ribbons volunteers when I enter you and you do not show up. It will be our toughest dual meet of the year to date. Everyone will have to be awesome.
Nice swimming Olympians!
Olympians Bring Home Hardware From Pentathlon
The El Paso Olympians had 38 participants in the Pontiac Pentathlon on Saturday, and 15 of them brought home medals and trophies for placing within the top six in their age group. Maci Ehrhardt won the girls 8 and under and Madi Ehrhardt placed fifth. Declan Duley and Garrison Meyer placed first and second in the 8 and under boys (Hank Harlan was a mere two points shy of placing), Tristyn Grube was third in the 9-10 girls, and Sebastian Meyer tied for fifth in the boys 9-10. Ella Blair was third in the 11-12 girls, Gabriel Pfister tied for sixth in 11-12 boys and Jack Weber took first place in 11-12 boys. 13-14 girls continued to be our dominant age group as we took half the high point awards with Madie Weber in 6th, Lily Blair in 3rd, and Faith Johnson won the age group. Shelby Heffron was second place in 13-14 boys, and Max Klein and Peter Koos teamed up to go 5th and 6th in the 15-18 boys age group with Alex Rhodes one point behind in 7th (sadly no medal for that).
The Olympians were also the only team to set any new meet records as Declan Duley absolutely destroyed the IM record (a Jake Anderson record he beat by 8 seconds) and Faith Johnson broke the 13-14 breaststroke record.
Yet despite our fine showing on the medal stand, and some record swims, it wasn't enough to overcome the teams from Pontiac and Clifton as the Olympians had to settle for the third place trophy. The scores were close as the Olympians amassed 1112.5 points to come with 36 points of Clifton's 1148. It only would have taken another 244 to catch Pontiac for first, and considering Declan Duley scored 80 points by himself, we were about three or four good swimmers away from winning this meet. With everyone returning next year, we should make it our goal now to bring home the first place trophy from Pontiac.
It was a long day for our Pentathletes as five events can really wear a swimmer down. In addition, we had more swimmers disqualified than any other team, something our coaches will be addressing in practices this week. All those times we say "get your arms out" on fly or "don't scissor kick" on breast or "don't take an extra stroke" on your backstroke flipturn or "you're only allowed one undulation on your breaststroke pullout" proved their purpose at the Pentathlon. Perhaps we need to train some parents to serve as officials for our dual meets and start disqualifying those things in the meets we win by 500 so that when we get to a meet where we place third by 36 points we aren't getting 50 points (and a potential second place) disqualified. Even with these forgivable mistakes, the Olympians had a an excellent day for PRs, 81 being earned by the 38:
- Cassidy Bergquist had three: fly, back, and IM
- Ella Blair had four: fly, back, IM, and free
- Lily Blair had four: fly, back, IM, and breast
- McKayla Boring had one in breast
- Celestino Duley had two: back and free
- Maci Ehrhardt had four: fly, back, IM, and free
- Madi Ehrhardt had one in back
- Myli Ehrhardt had three: fly, IM, free
- Ryan Filkins had two: back and IM
- Tristyn Grube had three: back, IM, and free
- Belle Harlan had two: back and free
- Hank Harlan had two: fly and free
- Sami Harlan had three: fly, IM, and free
- Shelby Heffron had a perfect day, managing PRs in all five events!
- Faith Johnson had two: fly and back
- Kassidy Johnson had two: fly and IM
- Max Klein had one in free
- Peter Koos had two: back and free
- Isabelle Kostelnick had three: fly, back, and free
- Lilly Kreitzer had one in IM
- Nellie Melick had four: fly, IM, breast, and free
- Waylon Melick had one in back
- Garrison Meyer had three in fly, back and IM
- Zac Nelson had one in back
- Gabriel Pfister had one in fly
- John Reutter had two: back and free
- Clayton Roberts had two: fly and back
- Shelby Roberts had three: back, IM, and free
- Grace Skolek had three: back, breast, and free
- Ruby Slightom had three: fly, back, and IM
- Brock Starkey had two: fly and back
- Jack Weber had two: fly and back
- Madie Weber had four: fly, back, IM, and breast
Garrison Meyer and Nellie Melick chose the Pentathlon as the location to earn their membership into the IM Club, congratulations to the two of you!
No meets next week, enjoy your quiet evenings, we will race again on July 2 in Dwight.
Be careful when you print the PR list, because any time listed without the negative sign, is a METER only PR and does not count as an actual converted PR. For example, if a swimmer has four events listed on the PR list, two with negative numbers on the far right column and two without negatives in the far right column, all four of those times are that swimmers best meters times, but only the two with negative time covert to be better than their yards time.
Olympians Defeat Roanoke 899-579, Now 3-0
Roanoke scored more points than either Stafford or Lexington, but were still unable to get within 300 points of the Olympians as El Paso's sheer size continues to dominate the summer rec league circuit. With 173 swimmers on the roster, the Olympians easily outsize most of their opponents, despite being from a smaller town. The Olympians managed to score in every single event tonight and won every age group except the 15-18 girls. Several Olympians managed to score over 15 points for the team, which means they averaged better than second place in every event they swam (scoring in individual events goes 7-5-4-3-2-1, so a 21 would be a perfect score). Those earning 15 points or more against Roanoke include:
Olivia McCormick (21) Maci Ehrhardt (18) Declan Duley (21), Lane Dohman (16), Tristyn Grube (21), Will Pearson (19), Isabelle Kostelnick (17), Ella Blair (21), Addy Brown (15), Jack Weber (21), Faith Johnson (21), Hannah Kiefer (19), Kaitlyn Ludwig (16), Jon Hasty (17), Shelby Heffron (21), Brock Starkey (19), and Max Klein (19).
Yet scoring is only half of the battle... improving our times is also why we swim. Out of a possible 331 individual entries, the Olympians managed to improve in 161 of them. Some people earned three PRs in the meet for the Olympians, those folks were:
Ella Newcomb, Will Pearson, Mary Rebbec, Clayton Roberts, Nadia Rosenberger, Mitchell Uphoff, Hank Harlan, Ryan Filkins, Kelly Finck, Wyatt Hinds, Lukas Holderby, Aleksandria Boyd, Allison Kelly, Isabelle Kostelnick, and Zac Nelson. Others may not have had three PRs, but the ones they had were of great magnitude, those with massive PRs were:
Bria Barker (-11 in IM), Lane Dohman (-4 in free and -7 in breast), Gabrielle Hamilton (-12 in back), Sam Finck (-8 in fly), Wyatt Hinds (-5 in free, -8 in fly, and -21 in back!), Lukas Holderby (-15 in IM), Alexander Johnson (-12 in free), Anthony Johnson (-13 in IM), Alex Klein (-37 in fly), Peter Koos (-5 in breast), Kelsey Pearson (-14 in free), Nadia Rosenberger (-28 in IM), Erica Rosenberger (-31 in IM), Brock Starkey (-9 in free and -7 in fly), and Alex Wiegand (-12 in breast).
Two newest members of the IM Club: Ella Newcomb and Travis Gramm.
I'd also like to use this forum to publicly praise the outstanding job many of our swimmers are doing as instructors for both our Junior Olympian program and for our Swim Lessons. While the payoff for coordinating a high-quality lesson program may still be a few years down the road, knowing that this generation of highly-talented swimmers is taking an active role in training the next generation of highly-talented swimmers bodes well for the future of our program. Thank you instructors for sticking around the pool all morning and serving the young swimmers of the El Paso area.
Tonight we changed things up in the initial results, we designated several swimmers as exhibition, this allowed a different group of swimmers to factor into scoring and ribbons. After the ribbons were printed and the team scores read aloud, I went back and removed all exhibition designations in order to maintain accurate year-long high point scores. Several of our age groups are going to be very close this year, so I think it is important to maintain accurate records as to who is scoring how much and when. If I started designating people as exhibition (which would deny them the opportunity to score) I could subjectively rig the outcome of high point winners. This method keeps it objective, and it probably doesn't even effect you unless you were curious as to why your child's ribbons say "exhibition". I assure you, the time is accurate, and I speak from experience that twenty years down the road the color and the place are not nearly as significant as the time.
I have attached more information than you probably care to open at 1am, but if you open one a day, it will last almost until I return, at which point I'm sure I'll send even more statistical charts. I've got the Top Times Spreadsheet updated, the IM Club, the 50 Free List, and Roanoke results sorted by name, event, and the PR list to be used for handing out PR Pops tomorrow, and just for safe measure I tacked on the current Team Records. Our 8 and under girls keep edging closer to those relay records, perhaps by Metamora they'll be getting their names on the board.
The true test of our swimming ability will come on Saturday at Pontiac. We were able to get second at our own invite, but we had twice as many swimmers as every other team Pontiac limits all teams to only 40 swimmers so the playing field is leveled. By taking 38, we guarantee that we will be within two swimmers of the largest team, but to earn points we will have to swim our best and place in the top of our age groups without disqualification. We will have 190 opportunities to earn PRs on Saturday, I predict that if we earn 100 PRs, we will be in a position to win the Pontiac Pentathlon, a meet we have never won as a team.
Second Place at El Paso Invitational
The El Paso Olympians had twice as many entries as the second biggest team, but still came up well short of winning the 2013 El Paso Invitational. The Metamora Area Swim Team proved too fast for the Olympians as the Redbirds scored 2164 to pull away from the 1547.5 earned by the Olympians. The Olympians did manage to send several individuals to the High Point Podium as Kaitlyn Ludwig, Faith Johnson, Ella Blair, Jack Weber, Shelby Heffron, Jon Hasty, Olivia McCormick, and Maci Ehrhardt all brought home some individual hardware. Declan Duley topped them all by winning all four of his individual events and coming home with the High Point Championship Plaque.
The Olympians also managed to earn quite a few PRs throughout the day as 179 performances counted as personal records. Being an invitational, swimmers were allowed to enter in four events and a couple swimmers managed to improve in all four despite how tired that must have made them. To give you an idea of how difficult it is to improve in all four events, only seven of our 108 registered swimmers managed the accomplish the task, those sever are: Mary Beth Wiegand, Gabriel Pfister, Shelby Heffron, Maci Ehrhardt, Lily Blair, Ella Blair, and Lane Dohman. Congratulations to those seven on a great meet.
If you think four PRs is tough, wait until Pontiac, when our swimmers will attempt to achieve FIVE PRs in one meet. We currently are at 34 registered swimmers and we are allowed 40. I will take the next six interested and register them.
We also had three new inductees to the IM Club: welcome Alyse Dohman, Lane Dohman, and Isabelle Kostelnick, you will receive your induction ribbons on Monday at the meeting.
And a very special welcome to Lukas Holderby, who joined the IM Club today as well! He also earned a point for the team with that IM, by placing 12th in the 8 and under boys. Nice job, Lukas!
A big thank you and congratulations are in order to all our parent volunteers today. Your help makes it possible to run one of the best meets in Central Illinois bar none. I am proud to be the coach for such an excellent and supportive group of parents. Your swimmers' success is very much a product of your efforts.
Double thanks to our assistant coaching staff, besides swimming to over 80 points for the team, they provided constructive criticism and encouragement to all 100 of our swimmers today, in addition to running warmups, corralling kids in the bullpen, and checking swimmers in. Thanks coaches!
Coach Michael
Olympians Improve to 2-0, Earn 201 PRs
The Olympians defeated the Lakers from Lexington by a score of 959 to 430. The Olympians also improved in 201 events. Some of those personal records doubled as team records as Declan Duley broke records in both the 25 free and 25 fly and Faith Johnson crushed her own 50 breast time. Some massive improvements as well as Luke Shaffer and Tommy O'Brien each took off over one minute from their backstroke bests.
Joining the IM Club last night were Luke Reutter, John Reutter, Ben Gensler, and Myli Ehrhardt.
I've attached results by event, results by name, Top Olympians in the 50 Free, Olympians Team Records (with 2013 highlighted in green), and the IM Club.
Olympians Win First Meet 924-426, 110 PRs
The Olympians travelled to Fairbury to swim the Stafford Sharks on Tuesday, June 11, and came away with a decisive victory. The girls on the team amassed 483 points for the team, while the boys were close with 441. Combined, our 924 points outscored the 426 earned by the Stafford Sharks by 498 points.
Several Olympians won every event they were entered in, including:
Madie Weber, Jack Weber, Ella Blair, Declan Duley, Madi Ehrhardt, Tristyn Grube, Shelby Heffron, Faith Johnson, Sebastian Meyer, Alex Rhodes, and in her first meet ever, Valerie Hamilton won every event she was entered in, which was the 25 free.
But winning events is only part of the reason we go to meets, we also go to swim our best. And out of the 167 events we were entered in, we improved in 110 of them! A few lucky swimmers were able to PR in three events: Zac Nelson, Chris Kindig, Peter Koos, Noah Stretch, Jack Weber, and Madie Weber all managed to improve in three individual events.
Some other swimmers had HUGE PRs at the Stafford Pool. Jocelyn Nelson dropped 8 seconds in her long free, AJ Hepner dropped 10 in his long free, Myli Ehrhardt dropped 9 seconds in her fly, Anthony Johnson dropped 18 in breast, Grace Skolek dropped 22 in long free, Christiana Thompson blazed through her IM 23 seconds faster than ever, Nellie Melick dropped 13 in her backstroke, Tommy O'Brien dropped 17 in his freestyle, Vera Rosenberger improved 21 seconds in her long free, but the improvers of the night go to a trio of backstrokers:
Katie Jo Jackson dropped 17 in her long free and 10 in her backstroke
Waylon Melick dropped 12 in his IM and 18 in his backstroke
and Zoey Slightom improved 45 seconds in her 50 backstroke.
We had only one inductee into the IM Club: Tristyn Grube, who also managed to swim to a first place finish in the event, nice job Tristyn.
I will send full results, a PR sheet, results by name, and new team records tomorrow after I get the ribbons sorted out.
Nice job Olympians! Up next Lexington at home on Thursday.
Don't forget to sign up for the El Paso Invitational this Saturday. Sign up by Thursday.
St. Jude Money is also due this Saturday.
We will set up for the meet on Friday night at 5:30pm, we could also use some concessions workers on Saturday.
Pontiac Pentathlon clip board will be at the pool tomorrow, you may also register via email. Just tell me who will be swimming.
Duley Breaks Miller's Records, 219 PRs
The Olympians raced themselves in an intrasquad meet on Thursday June 6th, and despite the chilly temps and the on and off precipitation, the Olympians swam to a record 219 PRs! The 15-18 Boys showed what a season of high school training can do as they shattered their relay records from 2012 in our first meet of the year. Leading the way among the individuals was 8 and under boy, Declan Duley, whose three-PR night included the removing of three of former-Olympian (and future Olympian?) Jake Miller's records from the record board. Declan beat the long free, the IM, and the breaststroke in the first meet of the season.
But Declan wasn't the biggest time-dropper of the night, the following all dropped double-digits off their previous bests:
Madie Weber, -12 in long free
Drew Van Dorsten, -12 in long free
Noah Stretch, -15 in long free and -17 in IM
Zac Nelson, -14 in IM
Gabriel Pfister, -11 in IM
Mary Rebbec, -22 in IM
Isabelle Kostelnick, -12 in breast
Shelby Heffron, -11 in long free
Lukas Holderby, -14 in fly
Anthony Johnson, -12 in IM
Sam Finck, -17 in breast
Maureen Gensler, -10 in short free
Declan Duley, -12 in IM
Carli Cooper, -17 in short free
Leyton Brown, -13 in long free
and JaLynn Broderick, -11 in IM, but by far the biggest improver of the night was Ben Gensler who dropped 7 seconds in his breast, 31 seconds in backstroke, and 50.13 seconds in his long free. Way to go, Ben!
Several swimmers also improved upon previous swims in all three events. The Triple-Crown PR earners are:
Ella Blair
Addy Brown
Celestino Duley
Declan Duley
Carlee Esser
Ben Gensler
Shelby Heffron
Jon Hasty
Max Klein
Peter Koos
Collin McCormick
Mary Rebbec
Payton Rarick
Will Pearson
Kelsey Pearson
Clayton Roberts
Shelby Roberts
Jaycie Schertz
Nathaniel Schug
Madie Weber
Jack Weber
Drew Van Dorsten
Noah Stretch
Grace Skolek
and Jordan Seal
We also had a few inductees into the IM Club: Madi Ehrhardt, Cassidy Bergquist, Jocelyn Nelson, Hannah Gilliland, Maci Erhardt, Waylon Melick, Hank Harlan, Javan Barker, and Nadia Rosenberger all swam their first competitive IM tonight. They will receive their induction ribbons tomorrow at the 9 o'clock meeting.
With Eureka Invite cancelled on Saturday, our next competition is the away meet at Fairbury on Tuesday. I need to see you on the deck at 5:15pm, warmups at 5:30pm. For away meets we often swim kids up age groups in order to get as many people as many as possible events, since few hosts besides ourselves allow multiple exhibition events. Fairbury also does not run a bullpen, we will have to get our kids where they need to be on our own. We were rained out in 2011, and home in 2012 and 2010, so it has been since 2009 since we swam at Fairbury, let's go get some good times.
Those of you who downloaded the Meet Mobile app were able to follow along in real time as the results were being entered into the computer. Just as soon as they were typed in, you could see them on your smart phone or tablet, pretty cool and sure beats crowding around the posted paper results at larger meets or waiting until midnight for coach to send them via email for the duals.
Tomorrow morning we will hand out ribbons, PR sodas, and play some games at 9am and 10am to celebrate our great first meet.
Thanks again to all the parent volunteers, we run a great meet thanks to you all.
