Ashleys, McGuire and Freisthler Lead PCST To 2nd Place Visiting Team at Coast!

PCST Brings Home Team Trophy From First Ever Coast Aquatics Meet!

While the Rick Byers Invitational has been here with us for 10 years now, the Coast Aquatics program is in its early stages of infancy.  For those of you who have been swimming for a while, you are familiar with the teams named ECS and BWB.  Both Emerald Coast Swimming and the Bluewater Barracudas recently combined their teams to make one super team called CA, or Coast Aquatics.  The meet in Ft. Walton Beach that our Tsunamis recently swam really well in, was formerly an ECS meet.  This means that the 20 PCST swimmers who attended were a part of history!  And they made sure to leave their mark too by bringing home the 2nd Place Visiting Team Trophy!!  Way to go Tsunamis!

Top 3 Team Rankings
1) Coast Aquatics
2) Orange Beach Swim Team
3) Panama City Swim Team

Ashley and Freisthler Lead The Tsunamis With High Point Awards!
These two youngs ladies are a perfect example of just how great the progression is from the Novice to the Age Group.  Marisa Ashley, only 9 years old, is one of our up and coming stars who showed just how much she learned from our Novice and Age Group programs by finishing 4th overall in the 10 & Under Girls Division.  That's not easy since she has only been 9 for a short period of time now.  For Gretchen Freisthler, she too is proof that our Novice swimmers are getting faster and stronger than ever!  She is still currently in the Novice group and is also a young swimmer for her age group.  At 7, Gretchen went up against many girls that were a full year older than her and showed that she is already one of the best 8 & Under girls coming up in the region with her 6th place overall finish and first ever swimming trophy!  We are super proud of both of you girls!

High Points
Marisa Ashley (10 & Under Girls) 4th Overall
Gretchen Freisthler (8 & Under Girls) 6th Overall

Maggiore Breaks Into All-Time Top 10 for 8 & Under Boys!
Speaking of the progression our PCST swimmers take that help them become great swimmers; Luke Maggiore is a prime example of that!  Over the summer, Luke dominated in our first ever Summer Splashes League Meets.  I remember getting to yell his name out in excitement week in and week out as he continued to win race after race every Tuesday night.  Since then, he has graduated from Summer Splashes into our Novice program and is officially one of the 10 fastest swimmers in PCST history for the 8 & Under boys in the 50 Back!  The best part is that he's just getting started too!  Congrats to Marisa Ashley for breaking into the Top 10 for the 9-10 girls as well.......................and at the tender age of just 9 mind you!

New All-Time Age Group Top 10 Swims
Luke Maggiore (8 & Under Boys): 50 Back (10th)
Marisa Ashley (9-10 Girls): 100 Free (7th), 200 Free (9th), 500 Free (5th)

Marisa Ashley Gets First Ever Short Course 10 & Under Southeastern Cuts!
With our trip to Knoxville right around the corner, many of our Tsunamis are working hard to get either some new Southeastern qualifying times, or simply getting their first cut times so they can join the championship team in Tennessee.  One of those swimmers was Marisa Ashley, and she skipped straight from zero to three cuts in one short weeekend!  Congratulations Marisa, for your awesome new SES times in the 100, 200 and 500 Freestyle events!

Michaela Ashley and Chad McGuire Join Marisa In Top 3 Individual Swims at Coast Meet!
The only two swimmers to win events at the first ever Coast Meet were both of the Ashley girls; Marisa and Michaela.  They did so in great fashion too!  But, not to be out done, Chad McGuire also added a Top 3 finish in one of his favorite events, the 100 Breast.  Congratulations to each of you on your swims that proved you were among the best of the best that weekend!

Top 3 Invididual Swims
Marisa Ashley (10 & U Girls): 200 Free (1st), 500 Free (1st), 100 Free (2nd), 50 Free (3rd), 100 Breast (3rd)
Michaela Ashley (13-14 Girls): 200 Breast (1st), 100 Breast (3rd)
Chad McGuire (13-14 Boys): 100 Breast (3rd)

Brasfield, Collier, Fulton, Maggiore, Freisthler and Hicks Also Finish in Top 8!
I love the fact that we had 20 swimmers there and nearly half of them were finishing in the Top 8 in individual swims!  That is a large part of the reason why we finished 2nd place overall in the visiting team category.  These were awesome swims and we are so proud of you guys!  I see a lot of names in this headline that I have a feeling I am going to be typing a lot more about in the future!  :)

Other Spectacular Highlights From the Coast Meet!
Since Coach Brian and I were in Tallahassee on this very same weekend, we were not able to be there to see all of the lightning fast swims ourselves.  We have had to rely on the meet results and stories shared from our awesome coaches, Casey and Kelcee, to give us a sense of how the weekend went in Ft. Walton Beach.  After hearing their notes, I can tell I missed one heck of a weekend!  Here are some other cool stories from our coaches that I would like to pass on..

•  Gretchen Freisthler placed in everything she swam and did not get disqualified a single time!  She also stepped up for the 10 & Under Girls relay even though she is only 7 and swam "the fastest backstroke I have ever seen her swim" according to Coach Kelcee!
• Chase Collier really stood out, not just in the pool, but also because he came to the coaches' table before and after every single race to learn race strategy and what he needs to work on for next time.  Even though our coaches forgot to mention that we want the swimmers to do this, Chase did it anyway on his own!  He dropped 11 seconds in his 100 free and quite possibly may have dropped the most total time out of all swimmers!  Chase, you really made an impression on our coaches!
• Kaitlyn Dietl gets the award for the best attitude during a first swim meet!  Even though she and her grandparents had never been to a meet before, she was smiling the entire time and she did a really great job!
• Abigail Catron really impressed the coaches when she swam the 25 Fly almost perfectly even though she had never even done that before!  She swims in Lane 1 with Coach Sharon and made Coach Kelcee and Casey super proud of her for that race in particular!
• Sage Hillier and Chase Collier cheered for almost every single Tsunami race during their session.  Coach Kelcee was especially proud of all of the fantastic sportsmanship from the entire weekend.  Sage and Chase led the way to show that it wasn't just the Coast swimmers and coaches cheering, but our Tsunamis care about each other too!
• Young Tsunamis show tremendous promise throughout the meet!  Caroline Freisthler (5), Layton Cox (5), Lewis Cox (7), Bailey Cox (9), Valeria Veras (9), Katelyn Wit (9), Jacob Thompson (10), Hannah French (12) all had great swims throughout the weekend.  The only thing better than their swims from the Coast Meet is the fantastic future in swimming that each of them have!  I can't wait to tell you more about these great young Tsunamis. :)

Up Next For the Tsunamis!
Congratulations to all of our swimmers who had such amazing races all weekend long!  If you thought that was fun..........JUST WAIT until the District Championships in Pensacola!  We will have the largest team we have EVER taken to Districts, and it's going to be an absolute blast.  Then, a week later we head up to Knoxville, TN with our Southeastern Qualifiers for what may very well be our fastest SES meet ever!  Can't wait!  See you there.

CATCH THE WAVE!

Coach Jonathan