2011 Sport Fair Winter Classic

Photos at bottom by: Mr. Jim Albertson & Mr. Dimitar Mavrova!

Over the past 18 years that I have coached this team, I have never seen the team perform the way it did at the 2011 Sport Fair Winter Classic meet.   The planets must have all been in alignment or we found the pot of gold under the rainbow but whatever it was, it was remarkable!  To put this into perspective, out of the 80 member squad, 32 swimmers went a perfect seven out of seven best times.  In addition to that, 23 more swimmers went six out of seven best times (one was 6 for 6), and still another 15 swimmers had five best times out of six or seven events.  So if you are counting, that is 70 out of the 80 swimmers that swam at least five best times!!  Our overall team performance was 79.2% best times, (436/550).  That is amazing! 

The energy level at the meet was awesome.  Kids from every team were on their feet cheering at the finals sessions.  Potomac Marlins led the team champion race for the first three days of the meet.  Coming into finals on the last day we had a slight 80 point lead over Snowbird.  Despite our coaches and swimmers going nuts and yelling and cheering for everyone, in the end, we were not quite able to hold on to the lead for the win and the team ended up placing second overall by less than 90 points.  Still, a valiant effort by all and a nice improvement over the past few years where we averaged 4th – 5th place finishes.  I cannot write about all 70 swimmers who swam so superbly at the meet so I will highlight the team’s top performances and mention the rest of the amazing performances in the chart. 

Over the course of the meet we had three new swimmers qualify for the NCSA Jr. Nationals meet held in Orlando, Florida every March.  Natalie Obando (CR morning) qualified at prelims on Friday in the 200 backstroke with a time of 2:05.92.  At finals that night, Stephanie Clarke (CR Morning) qualified in her first of two events when she swam a 57.97 in the 100 butterfly.  On Saturday, the march to NCSA’s continued with Reid Penzler (GMU Morning) qualifying at prelims in the 100 breaststroke with a time of 58.72.  Then on Sunday at finals, Stephanie Clarke qualified in her second event, the 100 backstroke, with a time of 57.89.  Congrats to these three swimmers and their coaches, Kevin Ahearn and Steve Ercolano on a job well done!  Natalie, Stephanie and Reid join Laura Schwartz (AM/JCC Senior) as the team’s only NCSA individual qualifiers.

Three more swimmers were first time qualifiers for the Eastern Zone Southern Sectionals meet.  Tiger Barbee (GMU morning) started it off Friday night at finals with a great swim in the 200 free, stopping the clock at 1:45.59 for his first qualifying time.  On Sunday morning he did it again with a 48.77 second swim in the 100 free. Congrats Tiger!  Becky Burke (AM/JCC Senior)  broke the one minute barrier for the first time at finals on Friday night in the 100 fly with a time of 59.70 for her first Sectionals cut.  Then, on Saturday at prelims, Karina Kolb (AM/JCC Senior) qualified for her first Sectionals event clocking a 25.10 in the 50 free.  Great swimming girls!  Tiger, Becky and Karina join current Sectional qualifiers Eli Bass, Nick Campbell, Collin Chartier, Lauren Hensley, Sierra Higinbotham, Gloriya Mavrova and Caleb Meindertsma.

Laura Schwartz was the only Marlin swimmer who achieved a high point award.  Laura was runner up in the 15&O girls age group with 123 points.  Laura placed 1st in the 1000 free, 2nd in the 100 fly, 1st in the 400 IM, 3rd in the 50 free,1st in the 500 free, 3rd in the 200 IM and 5th in the 200 breast. Laura achieved six NCSA Jr. National qualifying times at the meet as well.  Great swimming Laura!

Several team records were broken at the meet.  Only one individual team record was broken and that was by Holly Jansen in the 11-12 girls 200 breaststroke, breaking her own record by .01.  The 11-12 boys were putting up some amazing swims at the meet and when they teamed up, special things happened. Teammates Ben Gryski, Jonathan Pollock, Kyle Major and Hyung Tae Chang combined their efforts to break all four of the 11-12 boys relay records.  They set new marks in the 200 medley relay, 2:01.09, breaking the old record by .15 and the 200 free relay, 1:45.02, breaking the old mark by 2.23 seconds. These same four boys shattered the 400 free relay by 7.24 seconds setting the new mark at 3:53.21 and finally they crushed the 400 medley relay by 9.69 seconds setting the new record at 4:25.20.  Wow, that is amazing.  Great job boys and congrats on the new records!!

After the meet, I was pretty excited to say the least.  I could not wait for the results to be loaded into the USA SWIMS database to see where our club ranked amoung the Nations 2,800+ clubs.  I knew we were going to make a major move and I was right.  Going into the meet, our club was # 100 in the Virtual Club Championships (VCC) and coming out of the meet we were # 70.  Seeing our team come together like they did at finals each night and seeing some renewed enthusiasm from the coaching staff, I hope we can all take this momentum into the second half of the season.  We are making great strides but still have a ways to go.  As coach Bob Bowman said to Michael Phelps after he became the first man to break 50 seconds in the 100 m butterfly, “Wow Michael, that’s great…what’s next?” 

So I now put that same challenge out to all of you… "What’s next Potomac Marlins?"

Coach Bill

Below are some more highlights from the meet.

Other swims greater than 4.0 second time drop

Swimmers with top 3 finishes