PCST Finishes as 1st Place Visiting Team in Mobile!

Tsunamis Bring Home First Ever Team Champion Trophy From Spirit of Mobile Meet!

Never before have the Tsunamis gone to Mobile and come home as VISITING TEAM CHAMPIONS.........until today.  Twenty Tsunamis participated in the Spirit of Mobile Long Course Meet, which was the largest group we have ever taken to a Mobile swim meet.  And I have to be honest, I was not going into the meet thinking that PCST had a chance to win the overall visiting team trophy because it is usually very tough to win a meet with 20 swimmers.  That is especially difficult when 5 of the other visiting teams were less than 45 minutes away from mobile while Panama City is about 3 hours.  However, doing things we have never done before seems to be business as usual for the Tsunamis lately.

Hannah Retherford Wins Friday Night Spirit of Mobile Pentathlon!
On the first evening of the meet, the events consisted of the 4 x 50's of each stroke plus the 200 IM.  Rather than receiving points for each place you finished, your times from each event were added up to total a mythical 400 IM time.  Champions were crowned based on who had the fastest overall time.  Hannah Retherford, a PCST Senior II swimmer, won the 13-14 Girls Division with a total time of 5:09.67 in the narrowest of fasions by ousting Bluewater Barracuda swimmer Katie Miller by 0.13.  Congratulations Hannah on being the fastest, most well-rounded 13-14 girl at the meet.  Two other very respectable finishes came from Michael Duderstadt (2nd in the Senior Boys) and Chad McGuire (3rd in the 11-12 Boys).

Team Records Broken in Mobile!
The three Tsunami stars I mentioned above, proved why they were among the best at the meet by also breaking 5 different team records.  Hannah Retherford, Chad McGuire and Michael Duderstadt showed how their hard work has been paying off as they became the best in team history.  Hannah broke the 13-14 girls 50 Fly (32.4) and 50 Back (35.1) records that were both held by Carlee McDonald from 2006.  Michael Duderstadt once again has got everyone excited about the fact that Cody Bronnenberg's 15-16 breaststroke records are continuing to fall as he finishes the 50 Breast in 33.00, besting the former record by 0.03 seconds.  Don't worry Cody, we're excited because we have all seen just how great of a breaststroker you have developed into.  :) 

Chad McGuire, however, may have had the most exciting team record of the weekend.  Not only did he break his own 100 Breast record by 2.5 seconds (1:26.1), but he finished Saturday with a near perfect 400 IM, dropping 35 seconds to go a 6:16 and break the Richard Greer record from 2002 by an amazing 10 seconds. 

Baranowski Adds Another Southeastern Qualifying Time!
Age Group II swimmer, Peyton Baranowski, went to the Mobile meet as a bonus opportunity with one goal in mind............add more Southeastern qualifying times.  Out of her four races that were already incredibly close to the SES cuts, she drops time in three of those races, including a 1:39.99 in the 10 & Under 100 Backstroke to add another race to her Knoxville SES event list.  And the summer is still early for this young eager hard working Tsunami!

Developing Swimmers Put Together Great Races!
The other great story of the weekend came from our up and coming great Tsunami swimmers.  While the Senior I veterens like Michael Duderstadt, Evan Escobar and Michael Whitehead swam their hardest in spite of being incredibly tired from very hard training, some of our developing Tsunamis had many terrific swims without any rest at all.  In the Age Group, Theryn Compoc went best times in every single race she had!  Sarah Kate Paine also had a handful of best times on Saturday.  In the Senior II, Pre-Senior group, swimmers like Douglas Dick, Zach Dietz, newcomer Aaron Kaufman, Zach Dietz, Nathan Spencer, Shannon Doyle, Mitchell Christensen, Casey Pridgen, Andrew Krist, Hannah Retherford, Brandodn Templeton and Alysiah Stock all had a bunch of terrific swims. 

Coach Zach Makes His Comeback Debut!
Our Senior swimmers have noticed a new volunteer coach on the deck every afternoon, but many of you do not realize that Coach Zach Stein has also been getting in the water after practice for about 10-15 minutes to swim.  He decided to test the waters this weekend to see where he stood in his swimming since it's been nearly 4 years since he trained.  Before attending Auburn University, Zach was a star swimmer for the Tsunamis back in day and he showed that he's still got it.  His 26.33 on Friday now ranks him in the Top 10 all-time for the 50 Free, as does his 29.97 in the 50 Fly.  Could we possibly be seeing more of this comeback in the future?

For many of our swimmers, this meet was also about swimming races for the first time and gaining invaluable experience in them. For others, it was about learning to race your hardest under difficult circumstances and tough training. All in all though, it was a wonderful weekend and I am super proud of our Tsunamis for swimming with pride, working their hardest to get their hands on the wall first and coming home with our first ever team trophy from Mobile. Congrats Tsunamis!

Next up is the GPAC Meet in Gulf Breeze this weekend.  We will have 34 swimmers there and it is going to be a great weekend!

CATCH THE WAVE!

Coach Jonathan