Impressive Showing For Tsunamis in Gator Country!

 PCST Takes Largest Team Ever to Gator Swim Club Winter Classic and Half of the Swimmers Finish in Championship Finals!

When you travel to a meet against teams and swimmers you rarely race, it's difficult to get a pulse for how tough the competition can be and what it means to finish in the top 16 or top 8 in individual races.  The Gator Swim Club Winter Classic is a meet that has been one of the fastest winter invitationals in the country for over 20 years that I know of and actually goes much further back than that.  Not only does it annually provide about 90% of the top swimmers in the entire state of Florida, but it also has many of the top swimmers from Georgia, Alabama and South Carolina.

It is for this reason that I am very proud of the 21st place team finish the Tsunamis had at the meet!  There are over 45 teams that scored and probably about another 20 or so that weren't even able to score a single point.  PCST finished 21st without including some points we "scratched" out of finals that most likely would have placed us as high as 17th or 18th if those swimmers were able to stay for finals.  Our age group swimmers all had terrific meets which shows the wonderful job Coach Brian is doing with them.  And thankfully, most of the senior swimmers had a handful of swims to be very proud of, including a few swimmers that were terrific in every single race!  That is not easy to do so soon after the high school season.  Well done Tsunamis!  Here are some of the great results from the weekend!

PCST Has 12 Swimmers Finish in Top 16!
In many cases, finishing in the top 8 and top 16 at this meet were just as hard if not harder to achieve than the Southeastern Championships in February!  Congratulations to all of the swimmers below who had terrific swims to put them among the top swimmers in the Southeastern United States!   A big congratulations goes out to Kari Troia and Aden Mackenzie for finishing 3rd place in their top individual events, giving them both the highest finish in an individual race for the entire weekend!

Kari Troia (10 & U Girls) 100 Br (3rd), 50 Br (4th), 200 IM (8th), 100 IM (9th), 100 Ba (10th)
Reis Gordon (10 & U Boys) 200 Fr (9th), 100 Fl (11th), 100 IM (16th), 50 Fl (16th)
Kalanne Krause (11-12 Girls) 100 Fr (4th), 50 Fr (8th), 100 Ba (11th), 200 Fr (11th), 50 Fl (12th), 200 IM (14th)
Hannah Retherford (11-12 Girls) 100 Ba (8th), 50 Ba (9th), 50 Fl (11th), 100 Fr (12th), 100 Fl (13th)
Andrew Krist (11-12 Boys) 50 Ba (6th), 100 Ba (6th), 50 Br (8th), 50 Fr (14th), 100 Br (14th), 100 IM (15th)
Aden Mackenzie (11-12 Boys) 50 Fr (3rd), 50 Br (4th), 50 Fl (5th), 100 Fr (7th), 100 Br (8th), 50 Ba (9th)
Michael Whitehead (13-14 Boys) 100 Ba (4th), 400 IM (5th), 200 Fl (5th), 200 Ba (6th), 500 Fr (8th), 200 Fr (12th), 100 Fr (14th in prelims)
Victoria Hove (15-16 Girls) 200 Ba (8th)
Chet Seaman (15-16 Boys) 200 Br (6th in prelims)
Carlee McDonald (Senior Girls) 200 Ba (16th in prelims)
Astrid Escobar (Senior Girls) 100 Br (5th), 200 Br (3rd in prelims)
Cody Bronnenberg  (Senior Boys) 200 Br (5th), 100 Ba (10th), 200 IM (14th), 400 IM (15th), 100 Br (16th)

Yet Another 11 Team Records Fall in Gainesville!
I know I keep going back to this but it's really neat to see PCST consistently breaking team records in virtually all age groups!  Over the weekend we had a team record broken in every age group we had a chance to break records in.  Seven different swimmers smashed records in the 10 & Under, 11-12, 13-14, 15-16 and Senior age groups!  It was also neat to see Kari Troia break Jessica Chandlee's 8 year old records from 2001 because Jessica was on hand at the meet competing for Indian River State College!  How cool!  Here are the latest team records!

Kari Troia 10 & Under Girls 50 Breast (37.33); previously Jessica Chandlee (37.92) from 2001
Kari Troia 10 & Under Girls 100 Breast (1:20.12); previously Jessica Chandlee (1:22.74) from 2001
Kalanne Krause 11-12 Girls 100 Free (56.64); previously Kalanne Krause (57.41) from 2009
Hannah Retherford 11-12 Girls 50 Back (31.30); previously Hannah Retherford (31.31) from 2009
Aden Mackenzie 11-12 Boys 50 Free (25.57); previously Kevin Faulhaber (25.97) from 2004
Aden Mackenzie 11-12 Boys 50 Breast (34.54); previously Aden Mackenzie (35.16) from 2009
Michael Whitehead 13-14 Boys 200 Back (2:03.55); previously Michael Whitehead (2:05.13) from 2009
Michael Whitehead 13-14 Boys 200 Fly (2:08.28); previously Michael Whitehead (2:13.50) from 2009
Michael Whitehead 13-14 Boys 400 IM (4:26.77); previously Michael Whitehead (4:35.50) from 2009
Victoria Hove 15-16 Girls 200 Back (2:12.99); previously Victoria Hove (2:16.22) from 2008
Cody Bronnenberg Seniors Boys 400 IM (4:16.80); previously Cody Bronnenberg (4:20.83) from 2009

Still Rewriting the All-Time Top 10 List!
It seems as if every Tsunami wants a piece of the All-Time Top 10 List these days!  Not only do we have our usual suspects rewriting the list every second they get, but now we've got some 11-12 year old girls and as young as 13-14 year old boys getting in on the action!  That leads me to believe that years from now I'm still going to be making a big deal about the complete transformation of the All-Time To 10 List.  I sure hope so! 

New Girls All-Time Top 10
100 Free Victoria Hove 6th (56.28), Kalanne Krause 7th (56.65) **Yup, Kalanne is only 11 years old!
50 Back Hannah Retherford 7th (31.30) **Yup, Hannah is only 12 years old!
100 Back Carlee McDonald 6th (1:04.14)
200 Back Victoria Hove 2nd (2:12.99)
400 IM Nicole Gazia 6th (4:57.15)

New Boys All-Time Top 10
200 Free Michael Whitehead 8th (1:51.30) **Yup, Michael is only 14 years old!
100 Back Cody Bronnenberg 2nd (53.86), Michael Whitehead 4th (56.67)
200 Back Michael Whitehead 4th (2:03.55)
200 Breast Cody Bronnenberg 3rd (2:13.49), Chet Seaman 4th (2:18.58)
100 Fly Cody Bronnenberg 10th (57.20)
200 Fly Cody Bronnenberg 5th (2:03.74), Michael Whitehead 6th (2:08.28), Jonathan Ratliff 9th (2:12.17) **Yup, Jonathan is only 13 years old!
400 IM Cody Bronnenberg 1st (4:16.80), Michael Whitehead 6th (4:26.77)

Plenty of New Age Group Top 10 Times To Report!
It's a pretty solid weekend when 17 out of 20 of your swimmers swim times that update our All-Time Top 10 Age Group rankings too!  Congratulations to all of the swimmers who have new times to report!

10 & Under Girls
Kari Troia 50 Fr (9th), 200 Fr (3rd), 50 Ba (7th), 100 Ba (2nd), 50 Br (1st), 100 Br (1st), 100 Fl (4th), 100 IM (3rd), 200 IM (2nd)

10 & Under Boys
Reis Gordon 50 Fr (5th), 200 Fr (3rd), 50 Ba (3rd), 50 Fl (3rd), 100 IM (4th), 200 IM (2nd)

11-12 Girls
Kalanne Krause 100 Fr (1st), 500 Fr (3rd)
Hannah Retherford 50 Ba (1st), 100 Ba (3rd), 50 Fl (3rd)

11-12 Boys
Aden Mackenzie 50 Fr (1st), 100 Fr (4th), 50 Ba (4th), 50 Br (1st)
Andrew Krist 50 Fr (8th), 50 Ba (2nd), 100 Ba (3rd), 50 Br (3rd), 100 Br (5th), 100 IM (9th), 200 IM (8th)

13-14 Boys
Michael Whitehead 100 Fr (3rd), 200 Fr (2nd), 100 Ba (3rd), 200 Ba (1st), 100 Fl (3rd), 200 Fl (1st), 400 IM (1st)
Jonathan Ratliff 500 Fr (10th), 100 Fl (8th), 200 Fl (2nd), 400 IM (6th)
Dylan Mock 50 Fr (10th), 100 Fr (8th)

15-16 Girls
Victoria Hove 100 Fr (3rd), 200 Back (1st)
Jame McDonald 100 Fr (7th)
Nicole Gazia 100 Br (6th), 200 Br (5th), 400 IM (3rd)

15-16 Boys
Shane Young 50 Fr (10th), 100 Fl (7th)
Evan Escobar 200 Fr (8th), 200 IM (10th)
Chet Seaman 200 Br (4th)

Senior Girls
Carlee McDonald 50 Fr (6th), 100 Fr (5th), 100 Ba (4th), 200 Ba (3rd), 100 Fl (7th)

Senior Boys
Cody Bronnenberg 100 Ba (2nd), 200 Ba (2nd), 200 Br (2nd), 100 Fl (8th), 200 Fl (4th), 400 IM (1st)

New Qualifying Times
Over the past few years we have really turned our Southeastern qualifying team into a force to be reckoned with.  The next step is to have a true "Sectional" qualifying team and then on to "Junior Nationals"!  We are well on our way as our current Sectional team is up to 4 swimmers with 8-10 just fractions away, as well as 2 Junior National qualifiers with 3-4 very close!.  Keep up the great work guys!

Reis Gordon (10): Southeasterns (50 Back)
Kari Troia (10): Southeasterns (50 Free, 50 Back, 100 Back, and 11-12 100 Breast) 
Andrew Krist (12): Southeasterns (50 Free, 100 IM)
Kalanne Krause (11): Southeasterns (15-16 100 Free)
Hannah Retherford (12): Southeasterns (13-14 100 Back)
Dylan Mock (14): Southeasterns (100 Free)
Michael Whitehead (14): Southeasterns (100 Free, 15-16 200 Free, Senior 100 Back, Senior 200 Fly)
Victoria Hove (16): Southeasterns (100 Free); Spring Sectionals (200 Back)
Cody Bronnenberg (17): Summer Sectionals (400 IM, 200 Breast)

New Tsunami Award Levels
Keep in mind that the highest award level for Tsunami Awards is Level 11!!  Any swimmer who achieves Level 9 or higher has achieved a time this season that would have scored points at Southeasterns in previous years!

Kari Troia (Level 10 100 Breast)
Kalanne Krause (Level 10 100 Free)
Hannah Retherford (Level 9 100 Back)
Reis Gordon (Level 9 200 Free)
Andrew Krist (Level 9 50 Back, 100 Back)
Carlee McDonald (Level 6 100 Back)

Congratulations to all of our Tsunami swimmers who had terrific swims in Gainesville!  It was a great precursor as we head into the 2nd half of our short course season and the Southeastern Championships in February.  Now let's get back to work, train hard and see just how good we can get by February!

CATCH THE WAVE!

Coach Jonathan