Great 2nd place Visiting Team Finish at ECS Meet!
Tsunamis Bring Home 2nd Place Visiting Team Trophy!
As many of you probably have heard by now, your Tsunamis had one incredible meet at the ECS meet in Ft. Walton Beach! We had all sorts of great swims to talk about from Team Records to Meet Records, High Point Trophy Winners, First Swim Meets Ever, new Southeastern Qualilfying Times and plenty of new rankings in the All-Time Top 10 Age Group List! Mix all of those great swims together in a bowl and what do you get?? A 2nd place overall visiting team trophy!
PCST went to the meet with 35 swimmers ranging from the age of 6-13 while 26 of our older swimmers went to the ATAC meet in Tallahassee. We ended up getting 2nd place to a 120 swimmer strong Bluewater Barracudas team from Niceville and believe it or not, we weren’t all that far behind them. That’s loads to be proud of! Emerald Coast Swimming (ECS) actually won their own meet but always give away their team trophy since home teams tend to have an advantage over visiting teams. Therefore, we ended up with the 2nd place team trophy! With the competition forever increasing in the Panhandle, our young Tsunamis should be very excited to be one of the top teams at the Ft. Walton Beach Meet. Here are some of the great swims that got us there:
7 Tsunamis Bring Home the Hardware! Congrats to the following swimmers for earning High Point Awards for their age groups. At the end of the meet when all the points are tabulated from each of the events, host teams pass out awards for the swimmers with the highest point totals. Here are ours from the meet.
(8 & Under Girls) Amelia Talkington (2nd Place)
(8 & Under Boys) Nico Gobel (4th Place), Tristan Gandy (5th Place)
(10 & Under Girls) Kari Troia (6th Place)
(10 & Under Boys) Reis Gordon (3rd Place), Dylan Gandy (4th Place), Chad McGuire (5th Place)
Two Thirds of our Tsunamis Scored Points! Usually meets score the top 8 swimmers in individual events. At this meet they scored the top 6, making it even tougher to earn points for the team. We still had 24 swimmers earn points for the Tsunamis between individual and relay points! Any head coach would be happy with 2/3 of their swimmers earning points!! Here they are:
Congrats Point Scorers! Michaela Ashley, Javier Elias, Aidan Ferry, Dylan Gandy, Tristan Gandy, Fallon Gelsleichter, Payton Gentry, Nico Gobel, Reis Gordon, Chad McGuire, Alex Phlegar, Hannah Retherford, Amelila Talkington, Kari Troia, Conrad vonBlankenburg, Emily Silver, Molly Grace Bradford, Heidi Retherford, Sarah Adams, Lillie Ann Dawson, Nathan Hedglin, Nathan Schoppe, Josh Vaden, Emily Claveau
2 Relays Break All-Time Meet Records!! Not all meets keep track of meet records, but they do at the ECS meets. And I’m thankful! Otherwise we would have never known that both of our 8 & Under Freestyle Relays were the fastest in the history of that meet!! For those of you who have any idea how great ECS is with their younger swimmers, you will understand what a big deal it is for PCST to break their 8 & Under Meet Records!
8 & Under Girls 100 Free Relay (Emily Silver, Molly Grace Bradford, Heidi Retherford, Amelia Talkington)
8 & Under Boys 100 Free Relay (Aidan Ferry, Nico Gobel, Tristan Gandy, Javier Elias)
2 Swimmers Achieve New Southeastern Qualifying Times! Although Kari Troia and Reis Gordon already had qualifying times for the prestigious Southeastern Championships, they decided to go ahead and add another event to their list. Congrats to Kari for qualifying in the 100 IM and to Reis for qualifying in the 200 IM! Way to go! Coach Brian must really be doing something great with you guys already! :)
5 All-Time PCST Team Records Fall! We have a new 8 & Under superstar on our team and her name is Amelia Talkington! She broke 3 team records this weekend and was very close to others. She has proven already that she is one of the best 8 & Under girls in the history of the team, and the coaches all can’t wait to see how she does at the District Championships! We also had 2 relays break records which is always a great indicator that your group of younger swimmers is getting much stronger!
Amelia Talkington 8 & Under Girls 50 Free (33.33), previously Kaitlyn Blais (34.18) from 2002
Amelia Talkington 8 & Under Girls 25 Back (19.31), previously Kaitlyn Blais (19.42) from 2002
Amelia Talkington 8 & Under Girls 25 Fly (17.34), previously Kaitlyn Blais (17.81) from 2002
8 & Under Girls 100 Free Relay (1:18.92) Emily Silver, Molly Grace Bradford, Heidi Retherford, Amelia Talkington, previously (1:21.67) Hannah Retherford, Carson Bronnenberg, Kari Troia, Michaela Ashley from 2006
10 & Under Boys 200 Medley Relay (2:34.60) Dylan Gandy, Chad McGuire, Reis Gordon, Alex Phlegar, previously (2:36.46) Chris Duncan, John Greer, Richard Greer, Darby Ebel from 2001
6 Tsunamis Swim Great in Their First Meet Ever! As you all know, it is my goal to get more and more younger swimmers on the team competing in meets. These 6 swimmers really swam amazingly and had a great time doing it! Congratulations to Molly Grace Bradford, Aidan Ferry, Shane Ferry, Victoria Ferry, Austin Garrett and Ireland Garrett for making the Tsunami family very proud at their first swim meet ever!
New All-Time Top 10 Age Group Rankings! Nearly 1/3 of the PCST swimmers in the meet had swims that put them in the top 10 all time for PCST in their age group! That means that the group of younger swimmers we have coming up are quite literally some of the best the team has ever seen. It’s an exciting time to be a Tsunami! Here are those new and improved rankings:
8 & Unders: Amelia Talkington 25 Free 2nd (15.67), 50 Free 1st (33.33), 25 Back 1st (19.31), 50 Back 2nd (42.52), 50 Breast 3rd (47.85), 25 Fly 1st (17.34), 50 Fly 2nd (42.14), 100 Free 3rd (1:18.25), 100 IM 3rd (1:31.76), Aidan Ferry 25 Breast 10th (24.99), Emily Silver 50 Fly 6th (55.44), 100 Free 7th (1:37.72), 100 IM 8th (1:48.39), Nico Gobel 100 Free 10th (1:39.69)
10 & Unders: Kari Troia 100 Free 9th (1:12.01), 200 Free 10th (2:39.68), 500 Free 7th (7:04.26), 100 IM 8th (1:21.84), Reis Gordon 200 Free 6th (2:42.14), 500 Free 4th (7:08.60), 50 Fly 6th (37.99), Dylan Gandy 200 Free 10th (2:46.47), 50 Back 9th (39.45), 100 Back 9th (1:27.24), 50 Breast 7th (42.65), 100 Breast 6th (1:32.68), 100 IM 10th (1:25.25), Conrad vonBlankenburg 500 Free 6th (7:20.12), Michaela Ashley 50 Breast 7th (42.13), 100 IM 9th (1:22.77), 500 Free 9th (7:16.93), Chad McGuire 100 Breast 4th (1:30.76)
21 Swimmers Achieve New Tsunami Awards for 2009! Every 3 years, USA Swimming posts national motivational times for our swimmers to try and achieve. These are listed from the lowest level of "B" to "BB" then "A" all the way up to "AAAA". It’s a great accomplishment to get on the list and join the "B" Club for the Tsunami Awards, but if you get all the way up to "AAAA" then you are one of the best swimmers for your age in the country! These times can be found at the pool, on-line under "Time Standards" or in Coach Jonathan’s PCST Swimming Folder at practice. The Tsunami Awards run from Jan 1-Dec 31 and then start over each year. Here are our new updates for 2009:
"B" Club Molly Grace Bradford (25 Fr, 50 Ba), Emily Claveau (100 Br), Lillie Ann Dawson (50 Br), Aidan Ferry (25 Fr, 25 Br), Tristan Gandy (25 Ba), Fallon Gelsleichter (100 IM, 50 Fr, 100 Ba, 50 Br, 200 Fr, 100 Br), Payton Gentry (500 Fr, 100 IM, 50 Fr, 100 Ba, 50 Br), Nico Gobel (25 Br), Nathan Hedglin (100 IM), Heidi Retherford (100 IM), Nathan Schoppe (50 Fr, 100 Ba), Josh Vaden (50 Br)
"BB" Club Sarah Adams (50 Fr, 100 Ba, 100 Fl, 100 IM), Dylan Gandy (200 Fr), Chloe Gordon (500 Fr, 50 Fr), Alex Phlegar (50 Ba), Hannah Retherford (50 Fr), Conrad vonBlankenburg (500 Fr, 100 IM, 50 Fr)
"A" Club Chad McGuire (50 Br, 100 Br), Amelia Talkington (100 IM, 25 Fr, 50 Ba, 50 Fl)
"AA" Club Kari Troia (50 Br, 100 Br)
With the District Championships and Southeastern Championships just around the corner, I can’t wait to see all of the great improvements our swimmers will be achieving! They have been working hard these past few weeks and this ECS meet shows just how much they can improve from that hard work. Keep up the great work Tsunamis and hoepfully we’ll be bringing home more trophies this year!
CATCH THE WAVE!
Coach Jonathan
