I always worry about the Last Chance meet in the sense that the boys are so pumped for Champs up at Holton-Arms, that it is hard to get refocused and back to work for a few weeks heading into the final meet.  However, every year, the boys come up with some great swims, and this year was no different.  We had over 20 personal bests, which does not even include the first-time swims of the 100 Breast or 100 Back for some of our guys.  One swimmer even had two personal bests in one event while another swimmer added a few more entries to the record board.  And, as we have done to just about every team we have swum this year, we outscored them for another undefeated meet.

 

The meet began with 7 out of 8 swimmers earning a personal best relay split time, highlighted by Jake Kuhlen dropping 1.18 seconds in his 50 Breast split and Teddy Price breaking 32 for the first time ever in his 50 Fly split.  The freestyle anchors Carter Perkins and Jack Nystrom, were both very close to breaking their next time barrier.  Carter was .03 away and Jack was .20 away.

 

Nathan Parker got our individual events started in a big way.  As our only representative in the 200 Free, and entered in a heat with a few high school boys almost 30 seconds faster than him, we moved Nathan to the girls heat and it certainly paid off.  In addition to helping push a St. Cat's middle schooler to an 11-second personal best, Nathan too earned an 11-second personal best.  En route to his 2:22, Nathan went out in 1:08.30, .01 seconds faster than his previous best in the 100 Free, giving him two personal bests in the same event.  This gave us our 8th (9th if you count Brandon Moore) swimmer under 2:30 in the event.  Nathan also got the win in the event.

 

We continued the time-dropping in the IM, with Ethan Smith just missing the 1:10 barrier (by .02 seconds) and Bennett Long getting under 1:18 for the first time.  We took 5 of the top 10 spots in the 50 Free with Teddy Price and Alex Hatfield tying for 3rd and John Wishnack and Jack Nystrom both breaking 31 seconds for the first time from a flat start.  We took 3,4,5 in the 50 Fly with Nathan once again getting a best time and Teddy very close to his best time.  This was impressive given his quick turnaround from the 50 Free.  Robbie Joyner, who took 3rd, made up for his DQ in the event last time around, just about a half second off his best time.

 

Following the break, we had some big 100 Freestyle personal bests.  Bowen Hall dropped 5 seconds and Jake dropped 3 seconds.  Carter dropped almost 3 seconds as well, clocking a 54.67.  This put him ahead of two high school swimmers and .03 behind another high school swimmer.  This time moved Carter into the #2 spot all-time in middle school, just under a second from the middle school record.  In the 50 Back, Jack broke 36 for the first time and Alex was right on his heels, dropping about 9 seconds from his time trial 50 Back back in November.  Robbie was our only representative in the 100 Back, and came away with a win and .3 from his best time.  Without a 50 Breast in the meet, several of our swimmers swam an all-out 50 Breast to open up their 100, and then tried to hang on.  Carter opened his 100 Breast with a 32.15, which gives him the 3rd best time all-time in middle school, .16 behind his 2nd best time all-time and just under a second from the middle school record.  His 1:10.62 final time was also very close to the state cut of 1:10.18.  In fact, Carter was just over a second from the 100 Free state cut and .32 from the 50 Free state cut this season.  Jake, Ethan, and John also had personal best times for the 100 Breast, with Jake and Ethan each going out less than a second slower than their best 50 Breast.

 

We dominated the final middle school even, the 200 Free Relay, taking 1st, 2nd, and 5th among middle-school only teams.  There was, however, only 1 of our 12 swimmers to earn a personal best in these relays, but it was a big one as Nathan broke 29 for the first time ever, clocking 28.97.  This was our 5th win on the day and helped seal a big win with 410 points.  Collegiate was the closest with 276 points.  Beating 5 teams moved our record to 41-1 on the season, our 5th straight 40-win season.  We are 175-3 since the 2015-2016 season began.  Two of those losses came at the Candy Cane meet in 2016 when we were missing our top 2 swimmers and the other loss came earlier this season to Collegiate, a loss that could have easily been avoided by coach making a line-up to win, rather than get events set for championships two weeks down the road.  If you push back one more season to 2014-2015, we would be 215-8 for the 5-year span.  We look to continue this success next season with our core group of current 7s (including our number one fan this past month, JAC Borich, who was back again this past Friday cheering on his teammates) and a handful of new (current) 6s.  Plus, you never know what Alex Hatfields and Bowen Halls (new 8s to swimming this year) will surprise us next season.