My goodness.., that was a close meet yesterday!!!

We won though! :)

• GPS: 298
• HCY: 286

Before getting fully into the results, I want everyone to know how proud I am of all of us. This season has been a particularly hard one. The number of meet cancellations and need to reschedule has been more this year than any other previous one. I have coached in this league since 2003 and this was the worst I've witnessed. However, as is usual, comparatively speaking we are in pretty good shape. So far, we are the only team to finish our full schedule with all our dual meets completed. Actually, there are a couple of teams that still need to complete three meets next week! Ugh.., I'd hate to be in their position.

I recognize that cancellations means extra stress on family schedules and it also crunches in other events we do (GPS Invitational, Swim-a-Thon) in an already tight and fast summer schedule. So, I hope you stay with us and the sport; it's not like this every season, and please know you are definitely appreciated. We are pushing kids to go beyond their comfort zones and asking parents to volunteer a lot. All the efforts that your family and swimmers put into the season is what makes us the successful swimming community that we are. :)

Now, onto the meet highlights:

Swim meet scores reflect not just how fast kids appear on paper, but the full organizational acumen of the team. 

1. Consistently successful teams convince more families to show up more often for swim meets and practices.
2. Getting the right kid, to the right lane, behind the block, for the right race, at the right time, is a huge part of our success. 
3. It does not matter how "fast" a swimmer is, if they don't show up and get there in the first place.

Similar to Easton, HCY has some very strong swimmers peppered throughout their small roster and spread across different age groups. Unlike Easton, HCY matched up much better against us in terms of who they had available. In other words, their areas of strength (certain age groups & strokes) matched up particularly well to exploit some of our weaknesses yesterday. 

Plus, they had three things going for them I did not fully appreciate as a coach.

1. HCY's first three meets were all "away" and they could not muster as strong a compliment of swimmers at them. Meaning, I did not sufficiently track what their potential strength was by adding up all their swimmers from various previous meets. I was just looking at times, not times to swimmer names for most of their swimmers.
2. Many of their swimmers had not actually swam their "best" events previously either. They have a new coach and as he got to know his team and their strengths, he could better formulate meet strategies. As a result, the times they posted in meets that I was doing opposition research on were not wholly reflective of their true potential. I figured this one out only after talking to him when the meet was over.
3. This was HCY's first home meet of the season. After swimming three away meets with multiple cancellations in-between, they were excited, ready, highly motivated, and pumped up for their first home meet.

I never go into a meet with a "weak" line-up, nor one that is not thought-out. I hope our team culture reflects the values all of our coaches hold too, which is be a good sport, focus on the well being of the team first, have a good time, but always be a strong competitor and never give up. I've known coach Andrea long enough to know she's that way, and after previously coaching Cassie, Bella, and Jack since they were nine or younger, I could see that in them from their earliest years too; qualities they still possess today. So, even when I think we are going to win fairly easily and I view it as an opportunity to swim some kids in different events (developing the whole swimmer and gaining data for future meets and seasons), and not load all relays so that it is not a lopsided blowout, we always "switch & cover".  That is, if there's a good chance we might lose a point over here (trying an "off" event or not loading a relay), we make sure we can gain another point over there, so in the aggregate we still end up on the winning side. This is a different combo with every team we swim, BUT..., when you take into account HCY #'s 1, 2, 3 above, I admit, I was caught off guard. After-all, HCY was 1-2, and lost to teams we soundly defeated already.

So, how did we win? Not easily. 

1. HCY won 35 1st places to our 26. That is a huge, lopsided imbalance. With points as 5-3-1 for individual events, and 7-4-2 for relays, obviously whoever wins more races, wins the meet, right??? Normally, a team with much better depth can absorb a 32-29 imbalance, but in my 20+ years of coaching this team, I've never seen a 35-26 imbalance with the 26 going on to win the meet.
2. Relays are worth more too. But even in them, HCY won 8 to our 7.

We needed to double down and ensure we go 1-2 in age groups HCY could not cover, we needed some big wins from our stronger swimmers, and we needed to gobble up a lot of contested 2nd & 3rd places.

Excellence

GPS Parent Marshallers, Coach Bella, Coach Andrea, Coach Cassie, & Coach Jack - In a meet in which we needed every available lane filled to counter HCY, at a facility in which marshalling was the MOST challenging to do, our parent marshallers and assistant coaches were outstanding!!! Between the indoor/outdoor format, the crowding behind the blocks, the limited deck space, the blocked doorway, the distance between the grass field and the starting blocks, the heat, the humidity, and the loudness in the pool area, it was a recipe for disaster. Even just one or two missteps, and the meet would have been lost. However, the professionalism, organization, communication, and marshalling skill of this group was unparalleled and saved the day for us. This, probably more than anything else, helped secure our win. Every swimmer they were responsible for got to every event, on time, ready to go, with coaching reminders on how to legally finish, resulting in only a very few DQs, and lots of pick-up points for us.  

Unsung Heroes: It came down to a group of unsung heroes, swimmers who don't get the most ribbons, nor the most medals, and rarely a first place. The list below represents swimmers who prevailed over contested 2nd and 3rd place points in relay & individual events in which the outcome was uncertain, and were a major reason why were able to hold on and mitigate all those 35 HCY 1st places.

• June Perry, Ava Harrison, JoJo Visone, 
• Sammy Tallean, Henry Hartman, Ollie Mckenna, 
• Isabella Zhinin, Zoe Kruckmeyer, Orion Tasiopoulos, 
• Evangeline Lau, Ella Burke, Andy Romero,  Ashley Reichard

Grit & Grace Under Pressure: 11/12 Boys Free Relay, 13/14 Boys Free Relay, 15-18 Boys Free Relay, 15-18 Girls Free Relay - In response to all of our last minute changes, all of you reacted well, got to the right lanes in the right order, swam your hearts out, and won all those final points to put us over the edge. Well done!

Special Shoutout to our 15-18 Girls Relay, who won one of the more exciting, down to the wire, races of the season!. :)

Evangeline Lau: Three events, three best times, one new PJSL qualifying time in the 50 Back.

JoJo Visone: In the free relay JoJo nailed her start, fast reaction time, and was streamlined in the air before she even hit the water, which is exactly what she should be trying to do.

Nick Berger & Jack Smith: Jack, without a thought voiced or complaint issued, willingly sacrificed his spot in the 50 Back to allow Nick to win the race for us from lane one in a last minute change. Nick was outside smoke I know the HCY swimmer was not looking for. More importantly though, is the way they both reacted. They exhibited good sportsmanship, focused on the well being of the team first, hopefully had a good time, and were strong competitors who never gave up each in their own way.

More Highlights

• 35% Improvement Rate
• 56 personal best times
• TEN 1-2 finishes (each one is a 16 point swing, +8 for us, -8 for them), plus our last minute relay changes performing well under pressure, aaand all of our unsung heroes, aaaaand assistant coaches/marshallers getting kids to fill all those empty lanes, adds up to a stunning come from behind team victory unlike one I've ever had. :)

Full results are attached.

As always, see you on deck, :)

Coach Drake