We had all 9 boys in action, plus Davis Mullen to give us 20 entries across our 10 swimmers.  We ended up with 17 out of 20 swims yielding a personal best, with the 3 non-personal bests pretty close to best times.  Among these personal bests were 4 "elite performances" and 3 almost elite performances.  In the 50 Free, we had 8 personal bests, 4 of which not only beat a previous flat start best time, but also a relay start best time.  Our other 2 guys were .04 and .44 over their best time, so we almost made it a perfect 10 for 10 in personal bests.  Davis moved up to 21st on the all-time STC MS elite performance list, while James (27th) and Blake (40th) found their way onto an elite performance list for the first time ever.  Patrick was just .30 seconds off of joining this trio in the sub-27 second club.  Cumulatively, our 8 personal bests in the 50 Free dropped 8.08 seconds, working out to a 1.01 second average improvement per person.  That is a lot in a 50 Free!

The other events were also strong in terms of personal bests, with 9 out of 10 swims yielding a personal best.  Most came in the 100 Free as we went a perfect 6 for 6 in personal bests.  These six boys dropped 23.6 seconds as a group, averaging out to just under 4 seconds of dropped time per person.  Again, like the 50 Free, that was an impressive number.  Davis earned another personal best by breaking 1:00 in the 100 Free.  His time of 59.71 puts him 36th on the elite performance list.  James was the next closest at 1:01.50, just 1.5 seconds away from an elite performance.

Of our non-100 Free quartet, Blake swam the 500 Free, looking to break 6:00 and earn another elite performance.  He earned a personal best (thank you also to Braxton for counting for him) and was only 8 seconds off of a sub-6:00 elite time.  This marked the first time since 2017 that a middle school swimmer (not on Varsity) swam the 500 Free in competition.  Following the 500 Free (and the 200 Free Relay and second 10-minute break), we had Braxton and Levon take on the 100 Back and Cooper the 100 Breast.  These events were also successful for us as Levon dropped 5 seconds, Braxton dropped 2.3 seconds, and Cooper just missed an elite performance by .62 seconds in the 100 Breast.  It was a little longer night for this trio, but I appreciate them staying later and getting in some strong final swims.