Highest Team Finish EVER At District Championships!!

8 & Unders Lead Tsunamis To Record Finish at Southeastern District Championships!
For those of you who know me, you understand why I love the District Championship meet so much each year.  Not only is it a chance for some of our up and coming hard working Tsunamis to shine brighter than ever, it's also an opportunity to go lots of best times, get new Southeastern Cuts, and bring a spotlight to some new very deserving swimmers.  I am proud to say that we achieved all of those things at the District Champs in Pensacola!  And while we had great swims at all ages, some of our best came from the 8 & Under age group!

Each year we tend to have at least one swimmer coming home with medals from the District meet in the 8 & Under age group.  This is no easy task since you must finish in the Top 8 of your age group and this meet is the actual Southeastern Championship meet for the youngest swimmers.  This means that the best of the best in our region are there each year and the teams are fighting for a prestigious Southeastern Championship team trophy.  For PCST though, we have never had enough total great 8 & Under swimmers to put together enough points to even be thinking team championship.................until this year!  With our deepest squad yet, we were able to nearly pull off a couple of big upsets, giving us our highest team finish EVER at the meet!  The amazing performances put us in 2nd place out of 11 teams at the meet.  Great job Tsunamis!

8 & Under Girls Team Scores
1) City of Mobile Swim Association (CMSA)........144 points
2) Panama City Swim Team (PCST).....................116.50 points
3) TNT Swimming (TNT).............................................114 points

8 & Under Boys Team Scores
1) Holley By The Sea (HBTS).......................................133 points
2) Panama City Swim Team (PCST)...........................127 points
3) City of Mobile Swim Association (CMSA)..............124 points

Combined Team Scores
1) City of Mobile Swim Association (CMSA)................268 points
2) Panama City Swim Team (PCST)............................243.50 points
3) Holley By The Sea (HBTS).........................................133 points

8 & Under Final High Point Rankings
Here's my favorite part about these awesome team scores.  They came from a lot of swimmers!  Check out how great our young stars did.  They contributed a ton of points, as did Sophia Coughlin and Danny Matacchiero by helping out with essential relay points!!

Girls: Ella Hicks (4th overall), Khloe Smith (T-5th overall), Gretchen Freisthler (7th overall)
Boys: Alex Fulton (4th overall), Noah Vaden (6th overall), Luke Maggiore (7th overall)

Fulton Breaks REALLY Old Team Record!
I know we've been on the 8 & Unders a lot so far, but I have yet another great swim to tell you about.  For as long as I've been here (nearly 7 years!), we have re-written nearly 80% of the team records for PCST.  Yet, there has always been one age group that has eluded our best efforts and that's been the 8 & Under boys.  Some of those records are so great that even our star Tsunami boys over the years couldn't break but a single record.  Now, we have broken two!  Congrats to Alex Fulton for becoming the fastest flyer we've ever had.  I have a feeling there may be more on the way!

8 & Under Boys
Alex Fulton  25 Fly (17.05) breaks John Greer (17.14) from 2000

Alexander Gets Two SES Cuts In One Swim To Break Into All Time Top 10
At the District Meet, it's not often that we get overall All Time Top 10 swims.  It's not that we don't have great swims, because we were loaded with best times!  It's more so because the swimmers often doing these top times are competing at the Southeastern Championships and beyond.  Well, that should show you how great this 1650 swim was for 15 year old freshman, Liam Alexander!  He nearly dropped a full minute in his race and it was only the second time he had ever swum the event!!  The crazier thing is that the first time he swam it was only 3 weeks prior.  Spectacular race Liam!  I have a strong feeling we'll be hearing plenty more from him in the near future.

Liam Alexander 1650 Free 5th All Time for PCST (17:31.15)

New SES Qualifying Times (7 swims from 6 swimmers)
One of the many reasons why we go to the District Championship meet is to see if we can add to our Southeastern Championship Team.  I am proud to say that PCST added four new swimmers with their first ever short course Southeastern qualifying time!!  If you heard any unusually loud outburts during the meet, it probably came from our coaching staff after looking at the clock to see that these hard working Tsunamis had achieved their goal and were about to enjoy the taste of dedication paying off.  Congrats to Peyton Baranowski, Liam Alexander, Kathryn-Annette McKinney and Josh Dean on their new SES cuts.  Also congrats to Michaela Ashley and Maddie Campbell for adding new SES cuts to their event list.
 
Liam Alexander (Senior B) - 1000 Free, 1650 Free (got both in the SAME RACE!)
Michaela Ashley (13-14 G) - 100 Breast
Peyton Baranowski (11-12 G) - 100 Fly
Maddie Campbell (11-12 G) - 50 Back
Josh Dean (10&U B) - 100 Breast
Kathryn-Annette McKinney (10&U G) - 100 Fly
 
8 & Under Top 8 Swims (59 total medals!!!)
Wanna see where all of our 8 & Under points came from to get us the overall 2nd place team finish?  Check it out!!  Each of these swimmers will be going home with very prestigious championship medals.  It's funny too because I'm used to getting a small baggy of medals at the end of the meet.  Well, this year the bag was HUGE AND HEAVY!!!  I love it!
 
Girls
Sophia Coughlin - 50 Breast(7)
Gretchen Freisthler - 100 Free(8), 25 Back(4), 50 Back(1), 25 Fly(6), 50 Fly(6), 100 IM(4)
Ella Hicks - 25 Free(7), 50 Free(6), 100 Free(2), 50 Back(6), 25 Breast(4), 50 Breast(4), 100 IM(5)
Khloe Smith - 25 Free(5), 50 Free(5), 100 Free(5), 25 Back(6), 50 Back(4), 25 Fly(5), 50 Fly(7), 100 IM(7)
8&U Girls 100 Free Relay - Hicks, Coughlin, Freisthler, Smith (2)
8&U Girls 100 Medley Relay - Freisthler, Hicks, Smith, Coughlin (3)
 
Boys
Alex Fulton - 25 Free(3), 50 Free(3), 100 Free(2), 25 Back(3), 50 Back(5), 25 Fly(3), 50 Fly(4), 100 IM(3)
Luke Maggiore - 25 Free(8), 50 Free(5), 100 Free(7), 25 Back(6), 50 Back(6), 25 Breast(3), 50 Breast(5), 100 IM(6)
Noah Vaden - 50 Free(4), 100 Free(5), 25 Back(8), 50 Back(7), 25 Breast(2), 50 Breast(3), 100 IM(5)
8&U Boys 100 Free Relay - Maggiore, Mataccheiro, Vaden, Fulton (2)
8&U Boys 100 Medley Relay - Maggiore, Vaden, Fulton, Mataccheiro (3)
 
Freisthler Becomes District Champion in 50 Back!
Like I said earlier, each year we have an 8 & Under swimmer really step up and earn high points for the team. While we may have had that from a ton of swimmers this year, only one can call herself a District Champion. A special congratulations goes to Gretchen Freisthler for winning the 8 & Under 50 Back! Way to go Gretchen!!
 
Five Swimmers Win Seven Events Overall To Become District Champions!
You want to know what else is no easy task at this meet??  Winning an event in the 9 & Over age groups!  Usually it takes a Southeastern cut to win an event, or something really close.  So you know you've got to be great if you come home with a victory.  Plus, it just feels good to win, doesn't it??
 
Liam Alexander (Senior B) - 1650 Free
Peyton Baranowski (11-12 G) - 100 Fly
Fallon Gelsleichter (Senior G) - 200 Breast, 200 Fly, 400 IM
Alexis Hall (Senior G) - 200 Back
Gretchen Freisthler (8 & Under G) - 50 Back
 
New Age Group Top 10 Rankings!
Here's one of my favorite set of statistics.  The All Time Top 10 fastest swimmers in each event for each age.  I love it because having a lot of new times to report shows that we are incredibly deep at all ages.  This is like looking into the future!  And the future is BRIGHT!!  (To find a complete list of these rankings, go to the tab "Team Rankings" on the front page of the website)

8 & Under Girls
Ella Hicks 100 Free (9th)
Gretchen Freisthler 25 Back (8th)
Khloe Smith 50 Fly (10th)
 
8 & Under Boys
Alex Fulton 50 Free (5th), 100 Free (4th), 25 Back (3rd), 50 Back (4th), 25 Fly (1st), 50 Fly (3rd), 100 IM (3rd)
Luke Maggiore 25 Back (6th), 50 Back (5th), 100 IM (10th)
Noah Vaden 50 Free (10th), 100 Free (7th), 25 Back (10th), 50 Back (10th), 25 Breast (7th), 50 Breast (5th), 25 Fly (7th)
 
11-12 Girls
Peyton Baranowski 50 Fly (10th), 100 Fly (5th)

13-14 Girls
Michaela Ashley 100 Breast (9th)

15-16 Girls
Alexis Hall 100 Back (9th)
Fallon Gelsleichter 200 Breast (7th), 200 IM (8th)
 
15-16 Boys
Liam Alexander 500 Free (10th), 1000 Free (7th), 1650 Free (3rd)
 
Other Stand Out Swims From Age Group and Novice
As you know, I have my categories that I like to go over in these news articles.  It's not easy to hit all the highlights, especially at a meet like this where we literally have countless great swims!  So I would like to take this time to congratulate the following swimmers on their extraordinary swims throughout the weekend.  If we left anyone out, I apologize.  We just hope to pass along even more great recognition where it is very well deserved.  :)
 
Kathryn-Annette McKinney 100 Fly 1:33.88 (1 st SES Cut)
Josh Dean 100 Breast 1:43.94 (1 st SES Cut)
Jordan Vahabzadeh 50 Back (8 th) 47.09
Ben Hicks 200 IM (4 th) 2:51.47
Matt Dean 50 Free (5 th) 28.51
Ella Hicks 100 Free (2 nd) 1:27.24
Noah Vaden 25 Breast (2 nd) 23.04
Khloe Smith 50 Back (4 th) 47.02
Alex Fulton 50 Free (3 rd) 35.13
Luke Maggiore 100 IM (6 th) 1:38.30
Gretchen Freisthler 100 IM (4 th) 1:37.14
Sophia Coughlin 50 Breast (7 th) 57.00
Emily Johnson 1650 Free dropped 25 seconds!
 
You guys were AWESOME at Districts!  Next year we need to get even more of our teammates to go so they too can enjoy what a great experience the meet is.  Following Districts was the Southeastern Championships in Nashville, TN.  More to come on that soon!
 
CATCH THE WAVE!
 
Coach Jonathan

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