Good evening Lightning Bolts,

George Stultz (this Saturday) and PJSL Champs (next Saturday) are all open for swimmers to choose their events on our website, gps.swimtopia.com. 

How do you know if you qualified?

1. The events swimmers qualified for are clickable when you hit "Edit", "Attending" for each meet of these two meets. 
2. You can compare your swimmer's best times so far (can be seen on your Swimtopia account) to the qualifying times (PDF under "Inspiration" on our website and attached PDF).
3. Look at PDFs of this season's meet results, a "PJ25" is next to each swimmer's name and time they qualified for.

As for the meet tonight, we won!

• GPS: 391
• Hackettstown: 181 (they were missing quite a few kids though)

Sportsmanship: For demonstrating honor, fairness, and appreciation towards competitors. This could be from shaking hands after a race, to conversations overhead by coaches between competitors, to any other observed actions that may fall into this category.

• Erin Gilrane, Chris Barreira, Leo Alfaro, Santiago Roman, Itzi Flores-Ceja, Paige Nungester

Team Spirit: For consistent and enthusiastic cheering.

• Jaiden Velez, Evangeline Lau, Jacob Hufford

Excellence

Fran Berger: Behind the blocks Fran didn't seem confident and was certain she was not going to do well. However, after going over some racing points with Coach Jack, she executed their plan to a tee. In the 25 Fly, she held a tight streamline on her breakout start, took 4-5 strokes before her first breath, and then at the finish took her last breath at the flags and closed to the wall with her eyes down, and arms outstretched. The final result was Fran dropping more than 4 seconds and earning a 1st place finish.

Kyle Nungester: In the medley relay we were behind going into the last leg of the race, the freestyle. Kyle jumped in, but the Hackettstown swimmer wasn't giving up much water (IE: "wasn't giving up much ground", but we're swimmers, so we don't give up water), but at the turn Kyle timed it just right, and with a tight crunch, snappy flip, exploded off the wall and caught up! From there Kyle pulled ahead for a come from behind victory. Well done, Kyle.

Julian Colmenares: For encouraging his teammates while they were waiting to start their races.

Katherine Amundsen: For psyching up the 10/U and 8/U swimmers. This is what swim teams are all about. An accomplished 18 year old swimmer who will be competing in college in a couple of months, cheering and supporting our youngest and least experienced swimmers. The 8 year old and the 18 year old have a common goal and a developing team bond. Not only does this help pass on the passion and encourage kids to try even harder, but it passes on our team culture to the next generation and makes them feel like they are part of something larger than themselves. 

Full results are attached.

See you on deck,

Coach Drake