Seaman and Duderstadt Rock Junior Nationals in Austin!

Big Best Times for PCST National Team at Speedo Junior Nationals!

For those of you who have the pleasure of receiving our team emails, you have already seen my massively extensive daily blog from Junior Nationals.  Don't worry, I won't be typing that out again, haha.  I do want to say that I am incredibly proud of our young boys for representing PCST with tremendous pride at the Speedo Junior Nationals in Austin, TX in early December. (If you would like to read through the blogs, please feel free to email me and I'lll gladly forward them to you.  My email is coach_jonathan@hotmail.com.  But I warn you........they are long, so get a cup of coffee to read them with or something.)  :)

Winter Junior Nationals is the top fall competition in the country for 18 & younger swimmers.  The Dec 8-10 championship meet in Austin, TX brought 842 swimmers from around the entire country into an enviroment that exploded with new all-time records.  For PCST, this meet marked the first time the Tsunamis have sent more than one swimmer at a time to the Winter Junior National Championships.  While we did qualify both boy's medley relays and could have sent as many as 5 to Austin, our two boys made plenty of noise at the 18 & Under National Championship meet for PCST.  Chet Seaman and Michael Duderstadt competed in 4 events each, posting best times in three of them.  As you will see below, our boys are now ranked among the best in the entire country with very high national rankings.

Duderstadt Creates A National Presence With First Ever Winter National Cut!
For MIchael Duderstadt, his journey to Austin started in September at our first meet of the season.  At the home meet in Panama City Beach, "Duder" (as he is affectionately known as), qualified for the Spring NCSA Junior National Meet for the first time ever.  He became the first Tsunami in history to qualify for that meet using an "in-season" swim.  At the High School State Championships, in spite of swimming a strong best time, Duder did not qualify for Juniors just yet.  But he did not give up.  He had worked too hard and was so determined to get that qualifying time that he trained in New York during his family vacation so he would be prepared for one last opportunity to swim fast.

In Gainesville, the week before Juniors, Duder finally got his Junior cut in the 100 Breast by nearly touching out the former world record holder in the 100m breast in prelims on the very first day.  After getting his bonus cut in the 50 Free and then his 200 Breast cut later that weekend, Mom and Dad decided he had earned the right to head out to Austin.  For most, that would be plenty of excitement and reward.  But Duder wasn't done yet.  He proceeded to go even more best times in three of his top events, including a finals swim in both breaststroke races.

To cap off a fantastic run, Duder placed himself right in the middle of one of the more exciting "C" final races of the meet.  His 2:02.94 in the 200 Breast placed him 19th overall in a heat where all 4 boys were within a couple tenths of each other, with the first three places being separated by only 0.04!  And after just missing the Winter National qualifying time in the 100 Breast by 0.01 earlier in the meet, the simple single fist pump with a HUGE smile at the end of that race was nothing short of a spectacular moment for all.  His new best time had qualified him for Winter Nationals, making him the second PCST swimmer ever to reach that level.  The best part is that Duder's run............is just beginning! :)

Michael Duderstadt
100 Breast (57.00) placed 18th out of 104 total (Best TIme and only 0.01 off Winter Nationals!)
200 Breast (2:02.94) placed 19th out of 103 total (Best Time and Winter National qualifying time!)
50 Free (21.53) placed 60th out of 69 total (Best Time!)
100 Free (47.74) placed 9th out of 20 total in time trials

Current National Rankings for Michael Duderstadt Among 17 Year Old Boys
100 Breast (21st)
200 Breast (10th)

Seaman Proves To Be One Of The Best Overall Swimmers of All-Time For PCST!
Chet Seaman's run for Winter Junior National greatness began a loooooong time ago.  He has been a member of PCST for even longer than I have, and has always been one of the hardest workers on the team.  He's a perfect example of a swimmer earning everything great that was coming his way.  Chet's first qualifying times for the Winter Juniors meet actually came way back at the end of the summer when he qualified for the Summer Junior Nationals at the same time.  His 100m and 200m Breaststrokes were nothing short of spectacular at the Senior Zone Meet in Orlando back in August.  Unlike Duder, Chet had known he was racing in Austin for nearly a half year in advance.  And up until a short time before the meet, Chet WAS the PCST National team.

He too had great best times at the Florida High School State Championships where he played a key role in their runner team finish at the meet.  Then, only one week later he was going even more best times as he helped lead PCST to a "Gravy Bowl Invite" first place visiting team finish.  By the time he got to Austin, he had been swimming best times for over a month at three different meets.  Thankfully, Junior Nationals were no different as he added 3 new best times to his already impressive resume.  It wasn't his own resume that he added to though.  Chet has been an integral part of proving that PCST is one of the top breaststroke and IM teams in the country.

If there are two events/strokes that PCST swimmers are known for throughout the country, they are the IM and Breaststroke.  In the last year alone, the Tsunamis had three different boys with Winter Juniors in both Breaststrokes.  So as you can imagine, the standards have been set very high here at PCST with the top 2011 times achieved in the boy's Breast events ranging from 56.0, 57.0, 58.5 and 2:01.4, 2:02.9, 2:05.8.  By going a phenomenal 58.5 and 2:05.8 in his breaststroke events, Chet has clearly set himself as one of the top breaststrokers in the entire state of Florida, one of the premier breaststrokers in all of Southeastern Swimming, and even one of the best in the entire country!  But more importantly, he is one of the most amazing swimmers the Tsunamis have ever had!

More impressive than his crazy fast times (that would easily be tops on most teams in the country); is his leadership.  The reason the Tsunamis have so many swimmers qualifying for the NCSA Juniors and now the Winter and Summer Junior Nationals is because of the positive hardworking training environement we have created.  The bottom line is that we simply would not have been able to successfully grow such a positive nurturing practice situation if it were not for Chet.  His fun sense of humor, awesome work ethic and tenacious determination has set a great example for upcoming Tsunamis and we couldn't be prouder of his accomplishments.  Well done boy!

Chet Seaman
100 Breast (58.52) placed 63rd out of 104 total (Best Time!)
200 Breast (2:05.82) placed 42nd out of 103 total (Best Time!)
200 IM (1:56.22) placed 15th out of 38 total in time trials (Best Time!)
400 IM (4:09.44) place 8th out of 10 total in time trials

Current National Rankings for Chet Seaman Among 18 Year Old Boys
200 Breast (30th)

Both Chet and "Duder", also known as "The Twins", will join at least four other Tsunamis (and potentially many more) this March at the Spring NCSA Junior National Championships for what promises to be the greatest national level meet in PCST history.  Keep an eye out for more great news of top performances from both boys as we progress throughout the short course season with that elite level culmination in Orlando a couple months from now.

CATCH THE WAVE!

Coach Jonathan