RESL Championships 2013

For a meet that almost did not happen, I can say that in the end we made it work. It certainly was not the best Championships we have attended, the organization felt a bit shaky as if we put it together at the last minute. Oh wait, we did put this meet together at the last minute! On Saturday the pool was really cold (76 degrees), the backstroke flags were rarely at 15 feet unless there was no wind ... and we did get a nice fog generated breeze for most of the weekend. And to add to the confusion, the lane numbers did not match the actual numbers tiled on the pool side generating quite a bit of confusion for swimmers, coaches and officials.

Yet, the meet happened, and the swimmers raced and in the end it was all worth it.

55 swimmers participated in this year’s Championships in San Pablo competing in a total of 340 races. 66% best times over the weekend was the worst performance in the last 5 years, even though 95% of our swimmers posted at least one best time. Although we had the second most number of swimmers entered in the meet ever, we had more inexperienced swimmers participating resulting in the most number of disqualifications (25) since I have been keeping track of this. In the end we finish 5th, just 56 points behind 4th and 111 points behind 3rd.

24 swimmers improved their time standard with a total of 31 new "B" times, 27 new “A” times, 4 “JO” times and 4 “FW” times.

7 team records were broken, Congratulations to Coco Berkenfield (12) who broke 3 records in the 50 and 100 back as well as the 50 free, crowning a superb weekend where she improved her best time in all of her events. Congratulations to Sophia Bell (8) who is showing great potentials for such a young swimmer. She broke 3 records as well in the 25 back, 25 fly and 100 IM bringing her total number of team records for the season to 12! Last but not least, congratulations to Isabella Salmi (18) who posted one more record in the 100 free before leaving for college in the fall.

I also should mention the fact that 2 or our swimmers received the high point award in their respective age groups: Ian Chow-Ise (15-16) and Coco Berkenfield (11-12).

I have posted the results (Swimmer / Meet) on the website 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.

Special thank you to all the families for doing their part in helping run the meet. 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 team dinner, who were generous enough to give 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 us the opportunity to work with your children.

Marc