Good evening everyone,

That was a super fun meet today!! :)

Maybe because it's our 1st post Covid shutdown league championship, but...

No joking..., the excitement, the cheering, the "hot races", the music, the fast races, the charismatic and entertaining announcer, the exciting finishes, the # of best times achieved, the # of league records broken, and just the over-all energy..., all of it added up to one of the more memorable PennJersey Swim League Championships I've ever attended!! :)

• Full Champ Results PDF attached.
• GPS Top Times Report PDF attached

As for our own GPS results:

• We had a 36.73% improvement rate. That means more than 1/3 of every time we swam resulted in a personal best time! 
• We broke another 5 team records:
  • Boys 11/12 Medley Relay - Jackson Troutman, Miron Poshyvaylo, Brody Cullen, Aiden Vásquez
  • Boys 15-19 50 Free - Jack Drake
  • Boys 11/12 Free Relay - Jackson Troutman, Aiden Vásquez, Miron Poshyvaylo, Brody Cullen
  • Boys 13/14 Free Relay - Nick Berger, Austin Olexa, Daniel Kaminski, Ian Barrey
  • Boys 13/Over Medley Relay - lay Peterson, Nick Berger, Jack Drake, Ian Barrey
• We broke 2 league champ meet records:
  • Boys 11/12 Free Relay - Jackson Troutman, Aiden Vásquez, Miron Poshyvaylo, Brody Cullen
  • Girls 15-19 50 Fly - Broke it twice! - Genine Collins (26.57), Sophia Latini (27.13). Actually, the record was previously held by Lopatcong legend, Courtney Humes. At one point, Courtney had more Lopatcong and Phillipsburg HS records than any other girl, and a couple of league records too. So, it's gratifying and fitting that it's two girls from our team that replaced her final record name plate for summer swimming. 

Over-all team records this season? 15 new team records, broken by 11 swimmers, in 3 different age groups. Not_Bad_At_All.

Meet Highlights

• Kayden Cullen - Excellent breaststroke pullout in the medley relay.
• Aiden Vasquez - Awesome & Exciting come from behind victory in the medley relay.  
• Austin Olexa - Dominated the 100 IM and demonstrated sportsmanship too at the end of the race.
• Ayanna Elston - Another great start & turn which resulted in an upset victory in the 50 Free.
• Paige Nungester - HUGE UPSET!!! She was seeded 4th, but she dropped more than 1/2 second to get the win. :)
• BTW - A big thanks to Greg Nungester and Rich McCormick for being one of  championship meet computer operators and the meet director. :)
• Emma Collins & Riley Devlin - Thank you for the bracelet you made for Coach Drake. The team colors on it brought us good luck!!
• Jackson Troutman - The best start I've seen him do all season, and the perfect time for it too. He got off to a quick start, excellent angle into the water, good streamline, came up ahead of the pack, and from that point on, our relay never looked back on their way to a new team and league record.
• Sophia Latini - GRIT - Maybe it was the adrenaline, but I suspect it's just her natural grit. After hitting her arm hard on the wall in the backstroke, which resulted in obvious bruising on the elbow and skin scraped off, what did she do? Did she cry? No. Did she fret? No. Did she worry about her next race? Not that she showed. She just iced it, swam a few laps in the warm-up pool, got up on the blocks, and got a best time in the 50 Fly (almost a new league record and a 2nd place only to our own Genine Collins), and a few minutes later was the lead off leg for our 2nd place Free Relay..., all without complaint, but with a smile..., and no kidding, an exact quote, "I'm good, Coach." :)  
• GPS Assistant Coaches - An awesome group to work with, knowledgeable, fun, and dedicated. The real unsung heroes who are the ones with the great ideas. Thank you. :)

Some other interesting league statistics and small promo for winter swimming:

Between our GPS summer program and the YMCA program Coach Carlton and I run, 45/61 first places, second places, or 1-2 places at today's meet, all those swimmers were coached by us at some point over the years and many still are. As for the league records, 28/61 were done by swimmers we coached, and if we just take the records since we moved here in 2005, that's 28/43 records. 

With that in mind, I'll send Fall/Winter swim options tomorrow, Sunday. :)

Proud of all our kids and the great job they did this summer,

Coach Drake