Author: greenmountainswimteam

League Lowdown

Welcome back to the gator blog, and now for your much-promised look-back at League…

To start, the meet was incredible and a real testament to how hard the team has worked this year. Every time a Gator swimmer jumped in the pool, you knew something crazy was about to go down. We moved up to a 5th place finish OVERALL, including a 2nd place finish in our trophy. We beat one D1 team (Mt. Vernon) and were a mere 20 points from Columbine Knolls…a finish that would have moved our team up to D1 for the 2010 season. This was truly a break-out meet for the team and something everyone should be incredibly proud of! The coaches couldn’t be feeling more confident going into state!

That said, time for some individual shout-outs, because we had some TRULY incredible performances. Overall, we had 9 individual champions (Dylan Jacob (3), Tristan Gess, Elise Chevalier (2), Emily Cotten, Josh Duffy, Kenzie Oreskovich, Anna Granquist, Kelsey Bollig, Cody Spencer) that earned 12 first place finishes.

This is obviously an abbreviated list (I could write something about everyone…) but these were simply the most incredible performances of the meet. So a big, fat “well-done” and a gold sticker to…

…Elise Chevalier for no-freaking-way moment of the year. I’m still not sure there weren’t illegal propulsive devices in use during the 4th 25 of her breaststroke race.

…Josh Duffy for being a silent assassin. He recorded 1 win and 2 top three finishes in only his second year of swimming and without so much as a peep about his accomplishments. Who does he think he is??

…Daria Romero for her coming out party. In her first ever league performance, she recorded 1 top 10 and 1 top 5 finish and cut loads of time in the process! Did I mention she didn’t lose to any other 13 year olds? 2010, look out!

…Ianna Debrunner for being Ms. Big Shot. After an incredible finish to her season last year (state champion!) she once again stepped up at the big meet in one of the hardest years of swimming, moving up from 25s to 50s! She placed top 3 in ALL of her events and continued to shine when it counts!

…Inez Moore for her go-go gadget arms. Outtouching a 6’2″ opponent by 9/100ths of a second in a 3 minute race is the definition of clutch.

…Kenzie Oreskovich and Anna Granquist for nearly causing the first simultaneous quadruple heart attacks in history. They swam in two of the most exciting heats of the entire meet (200 and 100 free) and threw thier coaches and teammates into wild frenzies. Both girls swam WELL above and beyond expectations and both took home a blue ribbon to show for it!

…Dylan Jacob, Tristan Gess and Ethan Schick for putting thier names amongst the Gator all-time greats. They set a combined FOUR team records at the meet!

As I said, I could go on and on, but please congratulate these swimmers when you see them next!

And check out the banquet information in the right sidebar. Don’t forget to bring your side dish! We’ll see you at practice…tomorrow is my last day!

Coach Luke

Day one, post-league info!

Hello all –

First off, for those of you too tired or summer-ized to read much, please remember that Monday practice is CANCELLED! Then, from Tuesday-Friday practice times for state qualifiers will change to the following…

6:30-7:30 — SLEEP!
7:30-8:30 — Upper Division/11-12s
8:30-9:30 — 9-10s/8-unders

So as you see, your coaches can no longer sustain predawn alarm buzzing and are therefore moving practice back an hour to fully rest our rapidly aging bodies. That, and practice numbers will be down a bit. What’s mentioned above is strongly suggested…however if any of our 9-10s feel that they would prefer to drag their parents out of bed an hour earlier, well, I guess things could be worse.

Banquet information will be available MONDAY so please check the blog!

Second, a HEARTY congratulations to all of our swimmers who performed wildly above and beyond expectations today. Following day 1, the team is sitting in 5th place OVERALL and 2nd in our division. We had (I think) 6 individual event winners, 2 (maybe 3) new team records, and TON of top 5s. This has been a special meet so far with, I’m quite sure, a lot more special moments to come. I’d tell you more but…I foolishly started reading Harry Potter #7 an ok book yesterday and I don’t really anticipate having a lot more free time tonight…

We’ll see you all at the pool tomorrow morning at 7!

Coach Luke

Congrats, and league info!

First, I wanted to say congrats to our newest LEAGUE QUALIFIERS—Sidney Tonkin, Michael Tsareveski, Luke Guisto and Daniel Vlosich. This brings the team’s total up to 56–an incredible 27 percent increase from last year’s 44 qualifiers. Perhaps even more impressive is that more than 1 out of every 3 qualifiers in 2009 is a new qualifier (didn’t qualify in 2008). What an accomplishment for those new swimmers!

I also wanted to take a second to recognize Dylan Jacob for setting a new team record in the 9-10 boys 100 Freestyle, breaking an old record that had stood for nearly 20 years!

Even though I’m quite busy soaking up the big city (we went to a pizza place yesterday…with a bouncer! That’s how bad people wanted in!) I did find some time to post up the league psych sheet, that is the sheet that ranks all of the swimmers. Now, this is not an officially official sheet (minor changes are possible), but this is about it. There are some REALLY exciting races shaping up, so please, check it out!

Have an excellent week in the pool, and remember…you practice how you compete! That means no missing practice and no shenanigans! Hit every wall like it’s a race, make every stroke perfect, pee 5 times a day (from all of the water you drink, silly) and get your 8 hours of beauty rest. Because then you’ll be fast and beautiful. Most of all, have fun and get pumped up…this might just be the best meet of the year!

Good luck y’all, and I’ll see you Saturday!

Coach Luke

GOOD LUCK GATORS!

So as many of you already know, I’m heading off New York City with my wonderful mother (she reads this) to see my treasured sister (and she tells my sister what I write) for the whole week! A terrible time to leave, I know, but I will be back for league. In the mean time, your coaches will get you more than prepared for our biggest meets of the year.

Remember, this week we have 2 meets (complete info to the right!) First, our dual on Saturday with 2008 State Champions Applewood Athletic Club for all swimmers at our home pool, the swamp. Then, for anyone who is even REMOTELY close to making a qual time (league OR state!) we have the Last Chance Meet on Sunday at Green Mountain Rec Center. This is a VERY fast pool and there’s a lot of hunger and electricity in the air. I’ve seen countless “hopeless” cases crush times at this awesome meet. Please do your best to make it if you think there’s a shot!

Good luck to EVERYONE tomorrow, but a special good luck to my “middlers” trying for thier FIRST league times of the year — Sarah Daley, Mikela Dobbin, Luke Guisto, Brett Wilsey, Sarah Wheatley, Michael Tsarevski, Kevin Mercy, Sam Meiser, Tim Lucero and Hannah Long. These guys and gals are right on the brink in one event or more and have worked EXTREMELY hard over the last few weeks to get where they are, so don’t waste your time sitting under the tent…CHEER THEM ON!! There are lots of 8-unders and upper division swimmers looking for times as well, so put your screamer mouth on in the morning (as if most of you don’t already…)

Your coaches didn’t know 50 league qualifers were possible this year…could we get 60?? League won’t know what hit it!

A last request–if you’re one of our close kids, or if you have a great meet, or you just feel like saying “HI!,” please leave a note in the comment section of the blog or send me an e-mail at lukemorin@gmail.com to let me know how you did! I’ll be dying for news on Saturday and Sunday afternoon, so tell me about how you’re going to league or state!

Again, GOOD LUCK! I’d better hear the “AMEN!”‘s rolling over the bouroughs of New York City bright and early tomorrow morning!

I just know they’ll be goin’ down.

Coach Luke

Overload

Alright people, look here. Let’s have a little talk, just you and I. A little closer, this is important. That’s it.

I have to say something. Now, don’t take this the wrong way, but us coaches really, really cannot take many more nights like tonight. Now we realize that you people are all really into this swimming thing. Trying to qualify for this and cut time in that, blah blah blah. And that’s fine, we guess, but seriously, we need a little more warning if you’re going to try and pull something like this again. Just when a guy is looking for a nice, relaxing evening at the pool, you have to go and get crazy. I mean, we practically didn’t even get to sit down.

In fact, we’d have to say that tonight’s meet was a total disaster. I knew it was a bad sign when I had to drag half of the lower division out of the deep end. They just would NOT stop doing turns and trying to make their strokes all perfect before the meet. Annoying, I know.

But things got worse. Way worse.

We tried to wear everyone out by making them scream their guts out on the hill, but it didn’t seem to help. Maybe it even made things worse. Right away, Kenzie O, Olivia M and Sydney W decided to get smart and make some pretty saucy qual times, and dragging just about EVERYONE into a spiral that pretty much got out of control.

The kids all started swimming butterfly like they had colorful wings with decorative designs. Carly C got her first league qual, and again, everyone must have gotten pumped up or something. So more best times, across the board. More running up and down the slippery pool deck, screaming like crazy people. I came to the pool to relax, not run a screaming marathon up and down the pool!

Even though the coaches were pretty steamed at this point, league and state quals kept dropping like cotten from the trees. Tess H decided she’d like to go to league after all and kicked her fly into high gear. Heddie S made her first ever league time in the greuling 100 free, even though we tried to exhaust her with lots of butterfly beforehand. Kenzie got another state time, and Anna G acted like she could just do whatever she wanted, demolishing state times at will. This is a family pool, ya know!

Daria R hit her SECOND league time in a week, also her second ever, and Joe D made state in his breast, even though he’s a newbie. So showy, those two. Then Ethan S made 2 crazy state times in the span of about 5 minutes, and Alex S finished his quest to get all-state with a pretty quick 100 free. What’s he want, a medal or something?

Then the 2 musketeers (as I like to call them) showed up. Paige W and Nicole C. Yeah, I rolled my eye when they walked in, too. These two go under other aliases, namely “Haven’t swam a meet in years” Cotten and “I just swim to stay in shape for my other sports” Williams. What did they do in thier first swims? Well, I won’t recount the gory details. I think you get the idea.

Then–the real clencher–that little punk Tristan G went out and broke his 50 breaststroke record again. 44 something seconds. Can someone tell this kid that he’s only 10? I may inquire with the state about steriod testing. And I just spent, like, 5 minutes changing the record book YESTERDAY! Talk about ungrateful! And if he thinks I’m going to go and change it again, just have it broken again…well he’s sorely mistaken. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice…well, I’m pretty foolproof.

By the end of the night, by my unofficial count (still waiting on pesky results…I hope they never come!) we had 6 brand new league qualifiers (Sydney, Tess, Carly, Paige, Nicole, Heddie) and 2 new state qualifiers (Olivia M and Joe D). And I probably didn’t even get them all…trust me, it’s very overwhelming being in the line of fire like that, you’d probably miss something too.

Even the ones that didn’t make official times still couldn’t resist getting in thier shots. Daniel M dumped 14 seconds in a 50 fly, Scott W decided to take off 20 seconds in his 200 free, all while pulling thier I’m-gonna-swim-every-race-just-try-to-stop-me routine. C’mon guys. It’d be one thing if it was thier first time swimming, but this is just showboating. So obvious! Kelsie T, Lisa L, Sarah D, Mikaela D, Michael T, Sarah W and Ben M all pretty much ganged up on us and came within moments of hitting thier first qual times (for some, first ever). Do you think I go home and practice screaming? These races tire us out!

Please people, we just want some rest! A nice, relaxing, leisurely swim here and there might be nice. Think…Coach Shelby. Swimming breaststroke. Now that’s a great 5 minute break. Just once? Maybe?

Probably the only bright moment of the day (if not totally expected) came at the very end when your very own coaches pulled a very definitive victory over the upper division. I would say more, but I think the Shelbinator put it pretty well herself when she said “Dese little boys nevah stood a chance! We crush them like bugs with steel boots. Splat! Ha Ha Ha! What ghirly men!” Well, good effort anyway, boys.

She might not have effectively balanced the budget, but she did swim a pretty nasty 31 to slam the door on any comeback hopes. It didn’t hurt that she flexed a bicep at Riley right before jumping in, causing him to spontaneously pee his Speedo. And we all know what it’s like trying to swim in a peed-in Speedo…please do comfort him when you see him in the morning.

Otherwise, with my tortured tale finally down on paper, I might be able to finally get to sleep tonight…only to see all of you cruel, creul children in 7 hours! Oh, the humanity of it all!

Coach Luke