PCST Wins 3rd Annual SC Paradise Invitational!

Tsunamis Win a Close One at the Home Short Course Meet!

If you think back to some emails I may have sent out, or some encouraging talks at practice that I may have given about 3-4 weeks ago, you will remember how much our coaching staff stressed the importance of reaching the "Mission 100!" goal.  The desire to have 100 Tsunami swimmers at the meet may sound like a novelty because it’s neat to be able to say that we’ve broken the century mark at our own home meet.  However, the true reasoning why we encouraged so many swimmers to participate in our home Paradise Invitational is because we actually needed every swimmer we could get in order to win the meet!  If you take a look at the point totals below, you will see that we truly needed every swimmer we had and we WON THE MEET because of each and every one of you who swam!!!  WAY TO GO TSUNAMIS!

Final Team Scores
1st) Panama City Swim Team (PCST) 1,110.50 points
2nd) Area Tallahassee Aquatic Club (ATAC) 1,043 points
3rd) Greater Pensacola Aquatic Club (GPAC) 806 points
4th) Emerald Coast Swimming (ECS) 569 points
5th) City of Mobile Swim Association (CMSA) 531 points

PCST Team Records Continue To Be Under Assault!
A few years ago, the Tsunamis began a war against the list of all-time team records.  Since then we have rewritten 82 out of 152 short course individual team records (54%) with many more to come.  Our home meet over the weekend only proved to be yet another battle against that list as we broke 11 more individual records! This batch of new times comes from a mixed bag of swimmers.  Some are new to the team (Kalanne Krause, Aden Mackzenzie and Astrid Escobar), one is an up and comer establishing himself (Michael Whitehead), while two are a couple of our consistent top veterans (Victoria Hove and Cody Bronnenberg).  Congatulations guys!

New PCST Individual Team Records
Kalanne Krause 11-12 Girls 200 Free (2:06.88)
previously held by Nicole Blais (2:06.94) from 2002
Kalanne Krause 11-12 Girls 50 Fly (29.24)
previously held by Carlee McDonald (29.61) from 2005
Aden Mackenzie 11-12 Boys 50 Breast (35.16)
previously held by Greg Greer (35.18) from 2001
Aden Mackenzie 11-12 Boys 100 Breast (1:16.45)
previously held by Kevin Faulhaber (1:17.22) from 2004
Aden Mackenzie 11-12 Boys 50 Fly (28.19)
previously held by Jonathan Ratliff (28.47) from 2009
Michael Whitehead 13-14 Boys 200 Back (2:05.13)
previously held by Cody Bronnenberg (2:05.83) from 2007
Michael Whitehead 13-14 Boys 200 Fly (2:13.50)
previously held by Greg Greer (2:14.73) from 2002
**Jonathan Ratliff was also under that record with a 2:13.78!
Victoria Hove 15-16 Girls 100 Back (1:02.84)
previously held by Victoria Hove (1:03.77) from 2009
Victoria Hove 15-16 Girls 200 Back (2:16.22)
previously held by Victoria Hove (2:16.67) from 2009
Astrid Escobar Senior Girls 200 Breast (2:26.25)
previously held by Sara Evans (2:29.14) from 2008
Cody Bronnenberg Senior Boys 400 IM (4:20.83)
previously held by Joey Darnell (4:22.71) from 1999

Relay Records Under Fire Too!
Yes.......another "war" analogy, hehe.  Well......sometimes it feels like a war zone at our home meets with so many swimmers around and so many swims to watch.  Regardless of the analogy you prefer, there is no denying that our 13-14 boys and Senior girls are pretty strong right now.  The boys broke their relay records by 3 and 4 seconds amazingly!  Then, our senior girls broke a medley relay record that included two of our current collegiate swimmers (Lauren Delaney and Elvira Chiccarelli, both at the Air Force Academy), which means great things to come with the girls on that record breaking relay!   Oh yeah, since 2006, PCST has broken 22/34 short course team relay records.  That’s an amazing 65%!  Awesome jobs guys!

New PCST Team Relay Records
13-14 Boys 200 Free Relay (1:43.89) Dylan Mock, Josh Perdomo, Jonathan Ratliff, Michael Whitehead
previously held by Cody Bronnenberg, Kareem Rifai, Sammy Reyes, Matt Bryant (1:47.76) from 2007
13-14 Boys 200 Medley Relay (1:57.02) Josh Perdomo, Michael Whitehead, Jonathan Ratliff, Dylan Mock
previously held by Kareem Rifai, Cody Bronnenberg, Matt Bryant, Troy vonBlankenburg (2:00.70) from 2007
Senior Girls 200 Medley Relay (1:57.52) Victoria Hove, Astrid Escobar, Carlee McDonald, Nicole Gazia
previously held by Elivira Chiccarelli, Kyle Olstad, Lauren Delaney, Brielle Seaman (1:58.13) from 2008

Tsunamis Overcome the Cold to Have New All-Time Top 10 Swims!
It’s only natural that the weather be in the 80’s the day before our meet, down to the 40’s at night during the meet and then back up to the 80’s two days after the meet, haha!  That’s what we get for naming it the "Paradise Invitational", right?  However, in spite of the frosty mornings and wind chilled afternoons at the meet, nearly 20% of our team still managed to put together swims that were among the best in the history of the team!  It just goes to show that when you’re determined and you’ve worked hard for a long time, you will not let something simple like a little cold weather stand in your way of achieving your goals!

New All-Time Top 10 Swims
Carlee McDonald: 500 Free 6th (5:26.59), 1000 Free 5th (11:15.88), 50 Back 2nd (30.01), 50 Fly 3rd (28.15), 100 IM 1st (1:06.25)
Mary McDermott: 1000 Free 2nd (11:03.57), 200 Back 9th (2:22.47), 50 Fly 7th (29.37), 200 Fly 6th (2:21.33)
Allison Troia: 1000 Free 9th (11:23.85)
Nicole Gazia: 1000 Free 10th (11:33.38)
Victoria Hove: 100 Back 3rd (1:02.84), 200 Fly 4th (2:20.57), 100 IM 4th (1:07.21)
Astrid Escobar: 50 Breast 2nd (31.85), 200 Breast 2nd (2:26.25)
Kalanne Krause: 50 Fly 6th (29.24)
Sarah McDermott: 50 Fly 10th (29.60)
Kyle Olstad: 100 IM 8th (1:08.19)
Cody Bronnenberg: 200 Free 5th (1:49.44), 200 Fly 5th (2:05.36)
Michael Whitehead: 1000 Free 8th (10:50.25), 200 Back 6th (2:05.13), 200 Fly 9th (2:13.50), 100 IM 3rd (1:01.64)
Michael Perdomo: 50 Back 8th (27.82), 10 IM 1st (59.44)
Javier Elias: 25 Breast (23.67)
Chet Seaman: 50 Breast 5th (30.46), 100 Breast 8th (1:05.82), 200 Breast 4th (2:20.77), 100 IM 2nd (1:00.14)
Sammy Reyes: 50 Breast 6th (31.19), 100 Breast 10th (1:06.76), 100 IM 5th (1:02.84)
Jonathan Ratliff: 200 Fly 10th (2:13.78)
Evan Escobar: 100 IM 4th (1:01.89)
Shane Young: 100 IM 6th (1:03.40)
Dylan Mock: 100 IM 8th (1:05.22)
Troy vonBlankenburg: 100 IM 9th (1:05.36)

Over 1/3rd of the Team Finishes With Top 10 Fastest Times in Age Group History
Over 33% of the team that participated in the meet finished in the top 10 for their age group in at least one swim.  It should be pretty obvious by now that I love stats, however, that’s one that is pretty hard to ignore!  That means that one out of every three swimmers that stepped up on the block this past weekend swam a time that put them up with the PCST elite!  Incredible!  Our next step is to put that number over 50% and then start getting more swimmers on the top 10 list for Southeastern Swimming each season!  Some of you are already there.  Want to find out what it takes?  You can follow that list at www.seswim.org! 

New Age Group All-Time Top 10 Swims
8 & Under
Javier Elias: 25 Breast (8th), Tristan Gandy: 100 IM (8th)
10 & Under
Amelia Talkington: 50 Free (10th), Kari Troia: 100 Free (5th), 200 Free (8th), 500 Free (3rd), 50 Breast (2nd), 100 Breast (3rd), 50 Fly (9th), 100 Fly (8th), 100 IM (6th), 200 IM (3rd), Reis Gordon: 200 Free (4th), 500 Free (3rd), 50 Fly (4th), 200 IM (2nd), Josh Vaden: 500 Free (10th), 50 Breast (10th), Nico Gobel: 200 IM (8th)
11-12
Kalanne Krause: 200 Free (1st), 500 Free (3rd), 50 Fly (1st), 200 IM (3rd), Hannah Retherford: 200 Free (8th), 100 Back (6th), 50 Fly (3rd), 200 IM (10th), Aden Mackenzie: 50 Free (2nd), 100 Free (4th), 50 Back (3rd), 100 Back (5th), 50 Breast (1st), 100 Breast (1st), 50 Fly (1st), 100 Fly (3rd), 100 IM (6th), Andrew Krist: 100 Breast (6th), 50 Fly (10th), 200 IM (8th)
13-14
Dylan Mock: 50 Free (10th), 200 Free (10th), 500 Free (8th), 1000 Free (3rd), 200 Fly (7th), 400 IM (8th), Michael Whitehead: 200 Free (3rd), 500 Free (4th), 1000 Free (2nd), 200 Back (1st), 200 Fly (1st), Jonathan Ratliff: 1000 Free (4th), 100 Fly (10th), 200 Fly (2nd), 400 IM (9th)
15-16
Evan Escobar: 50 Free (5th), 200 Free (10th), 500 Free (7th), 1000 Free (5th), 100 Fly (10th), 200 Fly (4th), Michael Commins: 100 Free (10th), 1000 Free (7th), Nicole Gazia: 200 Free (7th), 500 Free (8th), 1000 Free (4th), 200 Breast (6th), Kyle Olstad: 200 Free (9th), Chet Seaman: 500 Free (8th), 100 Breast (4th), 200 Breast (4th), 100 Fly (8th), 400 IM (3rd), Allison Troia: 1000 Free (3rd), Jamie McDonald: 1000 Free (8th), 200 Breast (8th), Laura Kearns: 1000 Free (9th), Victoria Hove: 100 Back (1st), 200 Back (1st), 200 Breast (3rd), 100 Fly (6th), 200 Fly (2nd), JD Clutch: 200 Back (9th), Sammy Reyes: 100 Breast (5th), 200 Fly (9th), Shane Young: 200 Fly (5th), 400 IM (10th)
Senior
Carlee McDonald: 50 Free (6th), 500 Free (5th), 1000 Free (4th), 100 Back (5th), 100 Fly (10th), 200 Fly (8th), Mary McDermott: 100 Free (8th), 200 Free (4th), 500 Free (3rd), 1000 Free (2nd), 100 Back (9th), 200 Back (3rd), 100 Fly (5th), 200 Fly (4th), Cody Bronnenberg: 200 Free (4th), 100 Back (2nd), 200 Back (2nd), 100 Breast (3rd), 200 Breast (2nd), 200 Fly (4th), 400 IM (1st), Astrid Escobar: 1000 Free (9th), 200 Breast (1st), 200 Fly (10th), Michael Perdomo: 100 Back (9th), 200 Back (7th), 400 IM (6th), Matt Reece: 100 Breast (8th), Sarah McDermott: 400 IM (8th)

Next Up for the Tsunamis!
This weekend there will be 12 swimmers from PCST competing in the Dothan Meet.  After that we will have a few weeks of championship meets for our high school swimmers.  You can follow their results at www.fhsaa.org (click on swimming).  There you can see how they do at the District, Regional and State Championships.  And rest assure, we’ll have plenty of swimmers at each of those.  (Don’t worry, I’ll update you with their success as well.)

We also have a Kids Tri coming up in early November that we would love to see you in as well as a great meet in Mobile!  Many swimmers and families should also already be planning on attending the Gainesville Championship Meet in early December!  That will be the meet that prepares our team for the Southeastern Championships in February.............which we certainly are planning on being our best ever!

CATCH THE WAVE!

Jonathan