2nd Place Visiting Team Finish for PCST in Gulf Breeze!

Tsunamis Receive Points From All Age Groups to Finish 2nd Place Overall for Visiting Teams at GPAC Spring Fling!

A record number of PCST swimmers competed in the GPAC Spring Fling this past weekend, putting together a great team finish for the second week in a row.  After winning the visiting team trophy last week at the CMSA meet, 36 Tsunamis made a run at winning a meet for the second week in a row.  While we may have had 9 more swimmers in the meet than ever before, it left us just short of achieving that goal as the Southern Waters Aquatic Team (SWAT), from Mobile, pulled off the team victory just barely ahead of PCST.

Second Place Visiting Team Finish (Third Overall) For PCST
The meet, which is typically designated as a distance swimming meet only, was changed to a 1/2 distance meet, 1/2 regular meet this year.  Many of our swimmers only competed on Saturday of the meet, making it tough to pull off the overall team victory against a very competitive team like SWAT.  In the end though, our swimmers gave it their best and had lots of great swims along the way.

1st) Greater Pensacola Aquatic Club (GPAC).......................1,436.50 points (Home Team)
2nd) Southern Waters Aquatic Team (SWAT).........................677 points
3rd) Panama City Swim Team (PCST)....................................578 points
4th) Bluewater Barracudas (BWB)..........................................429.50 points
5th) Emerald Coast Swimming (ECS).....................................353 points

Alex Phlegar Breaks Youngest PCST Record In The Books!
Just last week I posted an article about all of our great swims at the CMSA Meet in Mobile.  One of those swims was a fantastic smashing of the team record in the 11-12 Boys 400 IM by Chad McGuire.  Well...........that seedling of a record never got a chance to grow because here we are just one week later and we have a new record holder.  Congratulations to Alex Phlegar for smashing that record once again by 15 seconds!

Alex Phlegar 11-12 Boys 400 IM (6:01.74) breaks Chad McGuire (6:16.83) from 2001

7 Tsunamis Come Home As Event Champions!
I just love typing out that we have the BEST swimmers in the meet!  It is very possible to have an amazing team finish at a meet without having any individual event champions.  However, over the weekend in Gulf Breeze, we had as many as 7 event champions in multiple events!  Congratulations to those listed below for being the best of the best this past weekend.

Michaela Ashley 11-12 Girls: 50 Breast, 100 Breast
Alex Phlegar 11-12 Boys: 200 Free, 400 IM
Chad McGuire 11-12 Boys: 50 Breast
Jonathan Ratliff 13-14 Boys: 1500 Free
Victoria Hove Senior Girls: 200 Free, 400 Free, 400 IM, 200 Fly, 200 Breast
Evan Escobar Senior Boys: 200 Free, 400 Free, 800 Free, 1500 Free
Chet Seaman Senior Boys: 200 Breast, 400 IM

8 Tsunami Seniors Complete The "Ironman" Challenge (8 Toughest Swimming Events in 2 days)
For many of these swimmers, competing in the 800 and 1500 free for the first time was a big enough challenge already.  However, they didn't stop there.  Eight of our Tsunami Seniors took the challenge to complete all 8 of swimming's hardest events in just 2 days.  Saturday's events were the 1500 free, 200 free, 200 back and 400 IM, while on Sunday they competed in the 800 free, 200 breast, 200 fly, 400 free.  Congratulations to the swimmers below for doing what they probably once thought was unthinkable!

Ironman Award!
Alysiah Stock
Fallon Gelsleichter
Victoria Hove
Zach Dietz
Casey Pridgen
Chet Seaman
Mitchell Christensen
Evan Escobar

Next up for the Tsunamis is the Emerald Coast Swimming meet this coming weekend in Destin, FL.  We have 66 of our best age group and novice swimmers (with a few seniors on Sunday) gearing up for a fun fun fun weekend of fast swimming!  Last year we won this meet as the first place visiting team.  Are you up to the challenge again??

CATCH THE WAVE!

Coach Jonathan