Spooky Plunge 2011

Well, another Spooky meet ... the 16th since we started the event. I am so greatfull that Northbay Aquatics was willing to host the meet at their pool, Mike did a great job and the fact that we had over 200 swimmers participating made this event one of the best I can recall. I loved the energy on the pool deck, kids seemed to have fun and parents seemed pretty relaxed. To top it off, the weather was as good as we could have wished for.

The Spooky plunge is certainly a different meet, we could call it one of a kind, and many years went into designing it so that we can better cater to our younger swimmers' need while making it interesting for the more experienced athlete as well. From the feedback I have gotten so far, it seems that everyone had a good time, and that's the bottom line.

Special thanks to Judy Ferguson and Theresa Kamler who took the time to introduce the art of judging to Nina Rannel. I am excited to see more parents stepping up and helping the team by becoming official. Another thanks to Andrea Salmi for taking the initiative and giving our team members an opportunity to purchased some Marlins gear at the meet. Last but not least I would like to thank those of you who helped with timing during the meet.

Soon to be an Olympic event.

I have posted the results on the website already. 84 Marlins swimmers participated in the meet. 211 races, plus relays and fun events was a lot to managed but with the help of Coach Gadi and Coach Jeff, all went well. 58% improvement ranked this meet as slightly above average, but what was less so was the 36 brand new swimmers who participated in a meet for the first time. Now that's a record in itself, we have never have this many new swimmers in a meet, this is truly exciting for the team. Congratulation to all of you, I know it took some courage to dive in (in some case jump in) for that first race. Another point worth noting is that 2 more team records were broken, the first was in the 15-16 50 free by Jared Sears and the other one is in the 13 and Over mixed 200 Free relay where Ava and Isabella Salmi, Jared Sears and Ian Chow-Ise pulverized the old record by 4 seconds. This brings the total team record for the season to 9, one more then last year at this point of the season!

I have posted a few pictures of the event on the Marlins website. You are welcome to add to it if you want. The ribbons for this meet will be ready to be picked up at Ross Valley by Monday, November 14th.

Go Marlins!