Junior Olympics

Seven swimmers attended the 2011 Junior Olympics Championships in San Ramon. With very hard conditions on Friday and Saturday (lots of rain, wind and cold) our athletes had a tough job. To spice it up, a record number of swimmers qualified for the meet, bringing the total number of teams attending to 102 and the number of swimmers over 1500! This made for very crowded warm-up / warm-down lanes and a confusing meet happening in 3 pools at once that made keeping track of everything a bit challenging.

But the Marlins managed, and with slightly above 50% best times, everyone getting at least one best time, 5 new team records and 2 new swimmers qualifying for Far Westerns in 2 weeks, we can say that it was not bad at all.

Congratulations to Aidan Cumming and Tyler Welty who both got their first qualification to the Far Western Championships scheduled in 2 weeks in Morgan Hill. Aidan qualified in the 50 Breast and Tyler in the 100 breast.

Congratulations to Coco Berkenfield and Ava Salmi for breaking a team record in the 9-10 100 back and the 13-14 100 breast, respectively, (both 10 year old records!), to Monica Sears, Tyler Welty and Jared Sears for improving their own records in the 11-12 500 free, the 13-14 100 breast and the 15-16 200 free respectively.

Good Job to James Beard, the youngest boy (11) for putting up with the weather and the cold and still improving both of his events.

Parents, thank you for the support. Jeff and I are greatful for it.

Marlins News

Considering the time of the year, the weather was pretty good for our first home meet, even if it was a bit cold for the second half. 60 swimmers participated, about 1/3 more than last year, and we welcomed 14 kids who participated in their first meet ever. Everyone was a bit nervous and I probably didn't help much by adding events to most of them. Still in the end everyone did a great job. Congrats to Cadence Ayoubpour, Bennett Barsotti, Mac Berry, Malia Chendo, Lindsay Eiseman, Ada Huttula, Sophia Lindsay, Alexander and AnnaLea Sreba, Lauren Surtherland, Aidan, Spenser and Haley Thompson and Noa Zimmerman.

A 62% best time is pretty good, considering that 25 and 50 yards event are a bit harder to improve. All in all a good event that hopefully got our new families to learn a bit more about the sport and our older one to have some time to catch-up. Still, I would have rather like to spend my time supporting and coaching the swimmers instead of starting the meet. Next time some of our more experienced family may want to step up.

Next on the Marlins schedule is the Junior Olympics Championships in San Ramon where 8 our swimmers will be competing over 3 days (3/18 to 3/20).

Do not forget our swim suit try-on. Reed from Norcal will be here are the pool from 4 to 6:30 pm on Tuesday, March 22nd. He will be happy to help you size the suits for your kids. He will also bring goggles and will be happy to deliver any purchases if you give him enough time (and the item is in stock).

The Monticello swim meet in Napa on April 9th is still open. So far we have 13 swimmers attending. It is a meet recommended for all our swimmers as long as they have at least one home meet experience.

Marlins News - Napa

Last weekend was the Napa meet. Although I witnessed some of the coldest temperature by pool side before warm-ups, I can still say that we got lucky. The kids were ready and prepared to handle the cold for the most part, and it seems that the conditions were not too distracting.

17 swimmers participated over 2 days of competition. We had quite a few kids sick or recovering from being sick so that explains the low percentage of swimmers who improved at least one event. Two disqualifications only, but both could have been avoided  (and both swimmers know it). Still a 50 % best time, 14 new races never perfomed before and 2 team records, make this an overall good meet for the team. Unfortunately, this was the last chance for our swimmers to qualify for the up-coming Junior Olympics Championships and even if a few kids got really close, no one added any events to the current roster of JO qualifiers.

I should mentioned the 2 team records broken over the weekend. Coco Berkenfield (10) broke a team record in the 200 back, it was her first time swimming the event and she took the record away from Sarah Dunn, one of our fastest Marlins swimmer who still hold many records. Also Tyler Welty who improved his 100 breast a bit and broke his own record set back in December. These 2 swimmers helped bring the total number of records broken to 29 since September, surpassing last years total records by 2 ... with 6 months to go before the end of the season. I can hardly wait!

Good job to all and a special thank you for all the parents who help time during the meet, and an immense gratitude for Theresa Kamler who worked as a stroke and turn during the meet.