Despite the chopped up season and only a few days back in the water after our 2.5-week layoff, the boys had a very impressive night.  We knew Collegiate would be tough, given our tight meet with them earlier this season, and I think that helped motivate the boys.

 

Despite not having Patrick, our personal best machine, we had 23 personal bests across our 12 swimmers.  This includes 7 personal bests from our 4 "guest" swimmers - George, Ryland, Davis, and Woods.  James and Camden had the rare 4 personal best night, even more impressive for Camden given he only swam in 3 events!  His opening 100 Free split in the 200 Free was a personal best by just over a tenth, en route to a big 12-second personal best from 3:00 down to 2:48 in the 200 Free.  He als dropped 3.5 seconds in the 50 Back and had a personal best relay split going 3rd in his freestyle relay.  James had some very impressive personal bests with both flat start and split 50 Free times, fly split, and a big drop over 2 seconds in his 50 Breast.  He is now knocking on the door of elite performances in those three events - .10 from the 50 Free, 1.2 from the 50 Fly, and .98 from the 50 Breast.  Speaking of elite performances, we had several this evening.  George had an elite performance in all 4 of his swims, Davis had one in the 50 Free (ranking 29th all time STC MS), and the medley relay team of George, Ryland, Davis, and Woods broke the 2:00 mark to earn an elite performance, ranking 27th all-time STC MS.  George's leadoff leg in this medley relay lowered his time from his already high ranking as 6th fastest STC MS backstroker ever.  He also ranks 14th all time STC MS in both the 50 Free and 50 Fly, among his many other elite performances in just about every non-breaststroke event.  Ryland had a triple personal best night in 50 Free and both flat-start 50 Breast and relay-start 50 Breast.  Levon had a big drop of 6.5 seconds in the 50 Fly just before the break, and then another second off his 100 Free right after the break.  Jack also had a duo of nice drops with over 2 seconds off his 50 Back (filling in on the medley relay for Patrick) and 3.5 seconds in his 100 IM.  However, perhaps the most excitement came from Tristan's pair of swims, breaking two big barriers for the first time.  He dropped 3 seconds off his 50 Free to break 40 for the first time ever, then followed it up with a 4.5-second drop in his 50 Breast for his first swim under 50 seconds in that event.  Way to go Tristan!

 

In the scoring, we used our depth to once again beat Collegiate as we did back in December.  They won both relays, IM, 50 Free, Fly, and Breast, with us only taking wins in the 200 Free and Back.  Going 2-3 in both relays, 2-3-5 in the 50 Free, 2-6 in the fly, 1-3-6 in the back, and 2-3-5 in the breast helped propel us to the win, 380-336 over Collegiate.  This pushed our record to 17-0 on the season.

 

It really was an impressive meet for the boys given our minimal practice, so I look forward to seeing what the boys can accomplish after a few more weeks of practice before the Varsity meet on 1/23 and the next middle school meet about a month away on February 6th.