Bronnenberg and Hove Rock at Sectionals and Junior Nationals!

Victoria Hove and Cody Bronnenberg Lead Tsunamis at the Postseason Championship Meets!

As some of you can imagine, my life gets a little hectic around the championship season.  So I apologize for taking so long to put this news article together, but it's worth the wait!  We had 2 Tsunamis compete at the higher level championship meets this season and I wanted to make sure you heard all about them. :)  Victoria Hove kicked us off with her first ever Sectional Championship meet in Nashville, TN the week after Southeasterns.  Then, Cody Bronnenberg finished us off with a bang at the NCSA Junior National Championships in Orlando a week or so later.  Take a look below at some of Victoria's accomplishments and then as you continue reading, you'll see the 4 news emails I sent from Orlando while were we at Junior Nationals.  Enjoy!

Hove Sets Team Record at Sectional Meet In Nashville!
It took a lot of guts to want to travel to Nashville with just her parents and her coach and no other teammates, but Victoria Hove really wanted to see what this whole "Higher Level of Swimming" thing was all about.  Boy oh boy was it an eye opener, but it's the best thing that could have happened because Victoria is not more motivated than ever!  I believe her words were, "It's just like Southeasterns except everybody is a foot taller and there are no age groups."  :)  Just as soon as we got back from our best Southeastern Championships ever in Nashville, I got back into the van and headed up there again for Victoria's swims and it was a great weekend that included a new team record, a nearly broken wrist and a travel weary coach, haha.

Here are Victoria's Swims
Saturday 100 Back (1:02.72) Finished 113th out of 120, but only about 1 sec off her best time
Sunday 200 Back (2:11.46) Finished 68th out of about 125 or so and was originally seeded 122nd!
Sunday 200 IM (2:13.67) Finished 60th out of 99 swimmers in spite of smashing her wrist on the back to breast turn.

New Team Record
Victoria Hove 15-16 Girls 200 Back (2:11.46)
previously Victoria Hove (2:12.99) from 2009

Congratulations Victoria on your first ever Sectional Championships!  Our "Section" has very difficult time standards, so it's a great achievement to compete in that meet.  PCST had 6 swimmers qualify for the spring sectionals and if we were swimming in the southern section of the southern zone meet that the rest of Florida swims in, we would have qualified 14!  So keep up the great work Victoria and maybe next time I'll be sending emails out about you at Junior Nationals! :)

Cody Bronnenberg Swims Lights Out at Junior Nationals and Breaks Coveted Team Record!
Yes, most of you have already had the opportunity to read the following emails, however, I figured I'd put it up as a news article so other people can visit our site and read it as well as all the new families that have joined the Tsunamis since March.  Cody was flat out awesome at the meet and since he's only a junior, we can't wait to have a full TEAM at that meet next year!  Enjoy the emails below!

News From Junior Nationals
We are having a blast here in Orlando at Junior Nationals!  I'll tell Mickey Mouse you all said hi.  :)  Our one and only Cody Bronnenberg started the meet off with a bang so I thought I'd share some cool news with you while I have a rare minute.  For those of you who don't know, this meet is about 1200 of the fastest 18 & under swimmers from the entire country!

This morning Cody was seeded 69th overall in the 100 Breast and ended up 20th at night!!  His morning swim time of 58.06 was a big personal best for him and along with it came all sorts of accolades.  Cody surpassed Kevin Faulhaber in the 50 Breast as the fastest all time with his split of 27.12.  He also jumped over Kevin and Paul Erben in the 100 as he is now the #1 breaststroker of all time for PCST.

That 100 breast recod held by Paul Erben was one of the more coveted records in PCST history because Paul went on to become and NCAA qualifier and Olympic Trial qualifier in the 100 breast for Florida State University.

Even more exciting is the fact that Cody qualified for an even higher level Junior National Championships in December!  We will be heading to Atlanta, GA in December for the Speedo Junior National Championships to race in the Olympic pool from 1996!  Oh yeah, and Cody was only 0.17 away from quaifying for the Summer Junior National Championships in Irvine, CA as well as only 0.47 away from qualifying for the US Winter Nationals in Columbus, OH! 

Tomorrow Cody has an easy day...........just an up and back 2 length 50 Breast!  Should be fun! 

Until next time....................................hope you are all having a great week!

CATCH THE WAVE!

Jonathan

Day 2 At the NCSA Junior National Championships
Today was one of the shortest and  fastest days of coaching I've ever had, but it was fun.  Cody Bronnenberg swam the 50 Breaststroke this morning and again tonight in finals.  Yup, you heard right, the 50 Breast................at a national meet!  :)  At this particular championship meet, swimmers who have qualifying times in the 100's get to swim the 50's of that stroke as well if they choose.  Well..........we choose. :)

Cody was seeded 60th in the 50 Breast going into the day and finished 29th overall after his finals swim tonight.  His time of 27.29 in the morning tied for 25th going into the "D" finals and he ended up 29th overall when all was said and done.  If it weren't for the fantastic 27.12 he split yesterday in the 100 breast, his 27.29 would have still smashed the fastest 50 breast in team history by a half second.

I have to admit, it's been fun to be here for two days and already have two finals swims under our belt.  Cody is feeling great, swimming great and we're having fun!  Wait until you see our "PCST National Team" banner that we made!   Next time we will have more than 1 swimmer on the National Team........anybody wanna join that team???? :)

Tomorrow Cody will swim the 100 backstroke and 200 breaststroke (2 events we are both very excited about!).  Cody is currently the 2nd fastest swimmer in team history in each of those events, so we're really looking forward to getting after both of them.

Keep well Tsunamis!  More updates to come from Orlando soon.

CATCH THE WAVE!

Jonathan

Day 3 at Junior Nationals
I'm proud to say that Cody is helping me keep the streak alive with great news each day from Orlando and Junior Nationals!  Today he competed in two events and was fantastic in each of them.

We started off the day in the 100 backstroke where Cody was seeded 80th going into the meet.  He just barely missed his lifetime best time by only 0.11 with a 52.82.  The good news though, is that Cody managed to move way up in the rankings with that swim and finished 58th overall.  Even better news is that his split time of 25.59 at the 50 eclipsed his all-time team record set a few weeks back in Nashville of 25.62.  Tomorrow he will have a shot at improving that time even more when he competes in the actual 50 backstroke event.

After an hour and a half of hanging out and people watching next to the warm up pool, Cody was ready again for race #2, the 200 Breast.  Coming into the short course season, Cody's best time was 2:13.  He improved on that in January with a 2:10.7 and dropped even more time off today with a 2:08.73!!  That time was good enough to improve his 2nd place position all time with the Tsunamis, just barely missing Paul Erben's team record of 2:08.08.  (Never fear guys...............Cody is just a junior in high school!!  That record should be quaking in it's suite!)  :) 

That 2:08 also qualified Cody officially for the NCSA Junior Nationals (he swam it this time as a "bonus" race"), and it also qualified Cody as a "Bonus" race for the Speedo Junior National Championships in Atlanta in December.  That means we'll be up there for 3 races now!!  His swim helped him move up from a 64th place pre-seed to a 35th place finish, just barely missing out on getting a finals swim for a third straight night!

Oh yeah........and did I mention that the Notre Dame Assistant Coach made a point of watching Cody's 200 Breast with me to check him out? :)  You guys should see all of the college coaches here scoping out the cream of the crop!  They are all lined up along the poolside and on the railing in the stands with their school shirts on and heat sheets in hand.  (It's funny because 4 years ago I was doing the same thing at that meet for Clemson, haha!)  I prefer coaching at the meet than recruiting! :)

Tomorrow morning will be the final prelims session as Cody gets ready for the 50 Back and 200 Individual Medley.  If I can get internet access tomorrow, I'll send you one final email with what will hopefully be our 4th straight day of terrific results!  I hope you have been enjoying the updates as much as I have been enjoying sending them!  And thanks so much to those of you who have been sending great wishes!  (We even had a PCST cheering section today as Laura Crocker and her mother were amazing enough to show up with a homemade PCST banner!!)  How cool is that?

CATCH THE WAVE!

Jonathan

Last Day at Junior Nationals
Well..........it's been one heck of a week and I'm exhausted! :)  Sure, Cody's the one who did all the swimming, but I'm the exhausted one, hehe.  Now it's time to head home for some quality time with my puppy dog (Buffett) and a great week off for the team.  Before we go though, I wanted to tell you about this morning's terrific final swim by Cody.

He was scheduled to race the 50 backstroke and 200 IM today but we decided to go ahead and scratch the 50 back because the way it worked out, there was only about 10 minutes of a break between the events.  Since the 50 was a "fun" race anyway, we decided to put all of our focus this morning into the 200 IM and it paid off!

Cody was originally seeded 123rd in the race!  I know some of our kids are thinking......123rd???  That's crazy cause Cody is so fast!  Well, he is but it also shows you that there's a whole world of incredible swimming outside of Bay County that our young Tsunami eyes are just getting opened to.  And get ready guys.......cause we're going head first into that world!  Cody moved up an amazing 55 spots to finish 68th overall in the 200 IM today.

Domination seemed to be on Cody's mind today because he completely obliterated the heat he was in with a blistering 1:56.86, beating his previous best 1:57.17 from the high school state championships in the fall.  Once again, as he has the rest of the week, Cody managed to get his name and the "Panama City Swim Team" announced on the loud speaker at Junior Nationals!  Based on how much the crowd heard our name this week, they probably thought our national team was bigger than one person!  Well.......it will be soon!

On a side note for those dads out there who are sports fans.............I have tell you that it was pretty cool to see ESPN Analyst and Radio/TV Talk Show Personality Mike Golic from "Mike and Mike" in the stands.  You may also remember him from playing for Notre Dame back in the day and from the Dan Marino Nutrisystems commercials.  It was neat watching him as a nervous dad as his daughter swam the 200 IM this morning.  She was 15 and was competing in the meet.  Pretty cool stuff!

If you've been keeping up all week, I hope you enjoyed it and thanks to all of your who sent the wonderful wishes to Cody.  I was sure to pass them on!  Enjoy your week off, don't forget to sign up for the home meet and we'll see you when we get back.  Pizza party coming up soon!  (Oh yeah........we'll see you at Red Elephant on Wed night too, right?) :)

CATCH THE WAVE!

Jonathan