BLAST MOJO
Wow! What a meet! With all the time we collectively dropped, you can set your clocks back one hour! A very good Saturday Session was followed by the Sunday Session that bordered on pure magic. We became a team that really got it's Mojo working - from Jesi Kopcso's lead off 39 second time drop in the 400 IM all the way to Harrison Prieto's final touch in his 500 free, setting four individual team records in one swim - the BLAST was a irrepressible tidal surge of time drops and individual best times. There was an amazing synergy among swimmers, coaches and parents that snowballed into an avalanche of giant time drops, state qualifying swims, event scorers and event winners. Three swimmers in a heat would step up and drop a bunch of time, the next swimmers up would see it and you could sense them thinking: "If they can drop, so can I". That momentum kept feeding itself to the point where some swimmers were getting multiple best times in one swim - doing their best times in 50 or 100 splits going out in longer events and the event itself would also be a best time!
The complete results haven't been sent to merge into the database, but the results are on the Crawfish Aquatics Website www.crawfishaquatics.com click on age group swimming, then click on short course meet results and look for their fall invitational results.
My perception of Sunday is we had in the neighborhood of 95% best times, which is easily the best percentage of any team at the meet.
But what made this meet such a success? First, all the swimmers who have been coming to practice regularly are at the "getting it" stage of the teaching, training and instruction. The swimmers in all groups from Barracudas down to Otters are starting to show the "racing smarts " that champions have. And the best part is there is a collective learning experience going on in every practice where swimmers are pushing each other to get better and that teamwork really shows.
Second, our meet organization went very smoothly. Not one swimmer missed an event. Parent captains did an outstanding job getting all the swimmers up and ready for their races. This made the coaches job so much easier; we could go to swimmers already behind the blocks and give them proper race instructions or motivations. Many thanks to all parents who helped in some big or small way.
Third, great sportsmanship and team spirit. The level of cooperation with the 500's was so good that many of our swimmers and parents were eager to count and\or time for swimmers on other teams who didn't have counters. I was very impressed with the character of our swimmers, both in victory and setback. Some kids came out of the pool really hurting after some events, but after a good warm down they were back and ready to race some more. The cheering for team mates was also very good, and at BTAC I have a feeling it will be even better.
Special Recognition: We had several swimmers make state qt's. They are: Kristen Jennings, 50 back, Alex Cloutet - 100 breast, Brooke Vinturella - 100 fly, Colin Babcock - 50 free, 100 free, 500 free, Jesi Kopcso - 400 IM, 100 fly, 500 free, 200 IM.
We have many more swimmers who are coming very close to making state times in several events, keep coming to practice and working hard and those fast times will come. We also had several 100% best time swimmers, and when I get accurate data I will list them.
See ya poolside,
Bill Babcock
