I was very bummed to miss being at the last meet in person, especially being the final MS meet for all of our 8s.  My 3-year old was home sick earlier in the week with a stomach bug and he was "kind enough" to share it, hitting me at the most inopportune day this week.  It sounds like the St. Bridget head coach suffered the same fate.  I would like to first thank Coach Via for manning practice earlier in the day and also being there for the boys at the meet.  Some may not know that Coach Via goes to 6th grade PE, followed by MS swimming, followed by working with the distance crew in Varsity track, so I appreciate him juggling that for me and the boys on a daily basis.  I did make my way up to the meet around 4:15 to print all of the necessary reports to run the meet and had a chance to briefly chat with Coach Via, and Matthew, before heading back home.  That being said, we could not have run the meet without you parents that helped out with timing and judging.  I hope your boys have thanked you for making these meets possible.  I would also like to thank Ben Franks for joining us for a few of our meets this year, especially because the last two have been on the heels of a Varsity meet.  He did break the middle school record in the 200 IM on Wednesday night, and swam a 1:02 100 Back right after that, before joining us for 4 more events on Thursday night.  That 200 IM record pushed Ben over the top in terms of STC records.  He now has 5 of the 12 individual records, topping Alex Gertner's 3 and Ryan Smith and Rawlings Leachman who each have 2.  With a .22 second drop in his 200 Free at States next weekend, he could grab his 6th individual team record.  But, before we get ahead of ourselves, let's go back to last night.

 

Coach Via felt like the boys really behaved much like a "team" last night, supporting each other, maybe more than in any other meet this season.  We have embraced our "small but mighty" mantra over and over again this year, and in a way, I think our small size has really helped our guys get to know each member of the team and embrace their strengths and differences.  Once again, we got out of the gates hard with a big medley relay win for our A team, after getting down early on the backstroke leg.  That being said, Matthew Matthews did lead off with a PR in his 50 Back and LT Nguyen anchored the relay with a PR split in the 50 Free.  Ben Franks and Colin Wishnack both bested their splits from Holton-Arms, helping this squad log the 5th fastest time in STC MS history.  The B team had a solid 4th place finish, going 4 for 4 in personal bests.  Harry Byrd led off that relay with a huge 3-second personal best in the 50 Back.  Tristan Litzenburg (breast), Levi Jones (fly), and Trey Mallette (free) all shaved .2 to .5 from their best splits in those events.  Despite swimming the fly just minutes before, Levi also had a personal best in the 200 Free by 3 seconds.  Townsend Sexton swam his first-ever 200 Free and although he did go 2:45 one day in a practice, he crushed that number with a 2:22 last night.  Thanks to a Will Franks 2:01, we were able to go 2nd-3rd-4th with that trio of swimmers in the first individual event of the day.  LT logged a win and a PR in the 100 IM while Tristan dropped 4 seconds from his best 100 IM, a feat he repeated in the 100 Breast later in the evening, and this helped him secure our 3rd straight 4th place finish to start the meet.  Will grabbed another runner-up finish in the 50 Free (pretty impressive as he was swimming through some pain to help the team) while Trey just missed another 4th for the team en route to his first sub-28 flat start 50 Free.  The 50 Fly gave us a 1-2 finish with Ben's winning time tying the 9th fastest ever swum by a St. Chris MS swimmer.  And, although Matthew just missed breaking 29-flat, he did get it earlier in the week at the end of practice going 28.81.  In the 100 Fly, Colin took 4th in his 1st 100 Fly ever, not too far off the VISAA high school state cut in the event.

 

In the second half of the meet, the 100 Free was the marquee event of the night with essentially 7 guys under 1:00.  Ben led the way as he was shooting to break 50.  He came up just short at 50.28, but that vaulted him from 4th best to 2nd best in the STC MS rankings.  Only Ryan Smith is faster (on 3 different occasions) in middle school history and they will likely be together on the final relay at States next weekend.  Matthew and Levi just missed breaking 1:00, marking Levi's third 1:00.something this season.  I think we will take one more crack at that in time trials this week.  Although we did not have anyone in the 100 Back, the 50 Back had another Harry 3-second personal best (actually .04 slower than his relay time earlier in the day), and Townsend got a big 4-second win, dropping a second off his time and coming within .09 of his best "two good arms" time from Champs this past summer.  Although I mentioned Tristan's 100 Breast PR, Colin and LT also had best times in that event, taking 2nd and 3rd, respectively.  However, just before that, in the 50 Breast, might have just been the swim of the season.  Miles Carlyon started the season swimming a very illegal 1:03 in his 50 Breast back in November.  Thanks to continuing to work at it, and making adjustments from coaches suggestions, particularly Coach Via, Miles swam 16 seconds faster last night with a 47.47 and a 6th place finish to go with it (his highest finish in any event the whole season).  And, although we don't have official relay splits and Coach Via was doing his best to get all 3 relay teams' splits, it sounds like Miles ended the meet with a 37 split (5 second PR) in his 50 Free.  The A team won that event with the 13th fastest time in STC MS history, and much like the B team, had a few PRs with a few almost-PRs mixed in.  Thank you to Matthew for swimming on both the B and C teams to allow that C team to field a team.

 

All in all, we ended with 21 PRs out of 41 swims (we won't count the 42nd swim which would have been Matthew's C relay anchor moments after his B team 2nd leg which was a PR by the way).  The score ended up a little tighter but still ended in another Saints win 287-201 over Goochland, plus the other 6 teams that were there.  This gives us a final record of 39-1 on the season, with St. Alban's the only team to beat us.  Although I was not there to see these swims, I have seen these boys work hard for the disjointed 3 months of our season and was happy to see the end results they deserved...more personal bests.  The win was nice too!