RESL Championships is always an adventure. No other meet brings the team together the way RESL does, no other meet has swimmers race up to 14 events in just 2 and half days and no other meet requires as much parent support.
And although everyone was pretty tired, the kids were excited, they swam great races, and they met new friends on the team. All in all they felt a little more like a “Marlin”. The parents got to meet each other as well; they saw that these two and half days of madness have a greater purpose then just bringing a bunch of kids to a pool to swim. The coaches got to talk to the kids, got to know them a little more and watched them swim honest races when most of the kids are stripped down to the basic feelings of determination, physical discomfort and a boost of self-worth. Yes it was a lot of work for all involved, and yes, it is definitely worth it.
51 swimmers participated in this year’s Championships in El Cerrito competing in a total of 359 races (compared to 60 swimmers and 346 races in 2009 and 80 swimmers and 300 races in 2008). I am sure there are a lot of ways to explain the decline in participation this year. We certainly had less swimmers attending practice in July this year, we had a lot less younger swimmers entered in the meet, but all this is neither good or bad, it just is. True to our team’s motto, “healthy competition”, there is no pressure put on anyone to attend the event, if you want to be there, then you should. However even with less total swimmers, we participated in more races.
Our 8 & unders finished 4th, our 9-10 finished 2nd, our 11-12 finished 4th, our 13-14 finished 4th, and our 15 and over finished 7th. Our girls finished 3rd, up 1 place from last year, the boys finished 5th, up 2 from last year. Our overall standing was the best we have ever done: 3rd Place!
The final point scores are as follows: 1- NAPA (Napa) 4676.50, 2- NBA (Tiburon) 3219,
3- PCM (San Rafael) 2169.50, 4- FOG (San Francisco) 2041, 5- CUDA (Oakland) 1819.50, 6- QUIK (Rohnert Park) 1587, 7- MONT (Montclair) 1121.50, 8- EBSD (Hercules) 1049, 9- STAR (San Francisco) 444.50, and 10- BEAR (Berkeley) 423.50
The Marlins were the most improved team with 72% best times (same as last year) 12.5% above the average for the participating teams. We received 16 disqualifications, down 6 from last year and below the teams’ average for the meet. 25 swimmers improved their time standard with a total of 40 new “A” times (20 in 2009), 20 “JOs” (7 in 2009), 12 “FWs” and 2 “PRTs”.
Most amazingly, 11 team records were broken in one single meet:
Lani Kamler broke a 9 year old record in the 9-10 100 Fly
Monica Sears broke a 7 year old record in the 11-12 100 breast
Ava Salmi broke an 8 year old record in the 13-14 200 Back
Isabella Salmi broke her own record in the 15-16 200 Back
Emma Jones broke an 8 year old record in the 15-16 100 Fly
James Beard broke a 13 years old record in the 9-10 100 free and he broke his own record in the 100 fly
Jared Sears broke an 8 years old record in the 13-14 200 free
Alex Claman broke his own record in the 15-16 200 breast
Tommy Davis broke his own record in the 15-16 100 fly and established a new record for the 200 fly.
Overall, the kids improved their times by a total of 638 seconds, about half of last year’s improvement. Obviously as the kids get faster, their times don’t improve as dramatically.
Out of the 51 Marlins swimmers participating, 42 helped score points for their team:
Meet ranking Name Age Individual Points Relay Points Total
| Overall Meet ranking | Name | Age | Individual Points | Relay Points | Total |
| 163 | Alimam, Peter E | 13 | 1 | 7 | 8 |
| 113 | Bauer, Bayley L | 6 | 15 | 7 | 22 |
| 110 | Bauer, Cayden C | 6 | 17 | 7 | 24 |
| 1 | Beard, James H | 10 | 160 | | 160 |
| Benjamin, Carson D | 13 | | 13.5 | 13.5 |
| 162 | Berde, Anika T | 12 | 4 | | 4 |
| 32 | Berkenfield, Collette H | 9 | 89 | 18.5 | 107.5 |
| 30 | Berkenfield, Jack A | 12 | 81 | 16 | 97 |
| 86 | Black, Nicole T | 8 | 28 | 17 | 45 |
| 62 | Blanadet, Lilly I | 8 | 50 | 17 | 67 |
| 68 | Carbone, Bennett O | 10 | 45 | | 45 |
| 76 | Claman, Alex R | 15 | 38 | | 38 |
| 42 | Claman, Kate S | 13 | 74 | 13 | 87 |
| Clark, Anna S | 9 | | 10 | 10 |
| 110 | Cumming, Aidan J | 12 | 17 | 16 | 33 |
| 28 | Davis, Tommy B | 16 | 85 | | 85 |
| 114 | Ferguson, Lizzie A | 10 | 16 | 8.5 | 24.5 |
| 139 | Fillabi, Kamron | 8 | 7 | 7 | 14 |
| 71 | Jo, Justin E | 14 | 42 | 13.5 | 55.5 |
| 75 | Jones, Emma A | 15 | 35 | | 35 |
| 16 | Kamler, Lani S | 10 | 109 | 18.5 | 127.5 |
| 144 | Loo, Kendra M | 12 | 7 | 6.5 | 13.5 |
| 83 | Loo, Violet | 10 | 29 | 10 | 39 |
| 145 | Luria, Jake B | 12 | 5 | 16 | 21 |
| 106 | Luu, Ann V | 7 | 19 | 17 | 36 |
| 133 | Miller, Jackson C | 14 | 9 | 6.5 | 15.5 |
| 171 | Ng, Olivia L | 12 | 3 | 14 | 17 |
| 150 | Organ, Robyn | 12 | 6 | 7.5 | 13.5 |
| 176 | Powers, Eileen M | 11 | 2 | 14 | 16 |
| 96 | Reskevicius, Justas K | 16 | 22 | | 22 |
| 11 | Salmi, Ava H | 13 | 114 | 13 | 127 |
| 53 | Salmi, Isabella L | 15 | 63 | | 63 |
| Saunders, Taylor C | 14 | | 6 | 6 |
| 4 | Sears, Jared N | 14 | 136 | 13.5 | 149.5 |
| 4 | Sears, Monica O | 12 | 135 | 14 | 149 |
| 139 | Snyder, Grey L | 8 | 7 | 7 | 14 |
| Thompson, Ashley A | 9 | | 8.5 | 8.5 |
| 38 | Vogelaar, Alicia Y | 13 | 83 | 13 | 96 |
| Wagner, Gwen M | 13 | | 7 | 7 |
| 35 | Walker, Jenny F | 8 | 88 | 17 | 105 |
| 108 | Warner, Anne M | 15 | 18 | | 18 |
| 11 | Zahradnik, Anton J | 12 | 114 | 16 | 130 |
Our swimmers did a great job and Jeff and I are certainly proud of their achievements. This is hands down our best meet to date and a great way to crown a very good season with a total of 25 new team records!
I have posted the results at the pool and the ribbons are filed in the team folders. You can stop by the pool anytime during business hours and the lifeguards will be happy to bring the folders out for you.
I would also like to give a special thank you to all the families for doing their part in helping run the meet. There are some great pictures available for download on the team’s website (you do need to log-in). Thank you to all the parents who participated in the Friday morning breakfasts at Drake over the summer, who again helped put together a great Doughnut Breakfast and a fantastic team BBQ, who were generous enough to help the team get new tents and great gifts for the coaches, who take the time to give me feedback on the team, who counsel and assist me when needed. Again, thank you all for giving Jeff and I the opportunity to work with your children.
Marc
