WSY having amazing success in College Park, Maryland

Sorry about not writing last night as I had a few "server" type problems which are way too much to explain. We had an awesome day yesterday with excellent results for the entire team. One of the areas we talk about in our daily team meetings is keeping positive, and working together as a team. It is almost like the "snowball effect", when you get a few athletes swimming fast, and seeing great time improvements, all of the swimmers start to think "if they can do it, so can I". We talk about "Laying it on the line", not holding back. getting our fast in all of your races, yet still able to finish strong. Sure, you are going to be fatigued due to the long days, and sure it may hurt a bit, but really, this is the last meet of the season. Lets see what you have.

Right from the beginning yesterday we had some awesome swims. We are scoring points in many events. The team spirit is very high, and everyone is getting along and becoming closer as a team. As I mentioned previously, only Leah and Harry (out of 21 swimmers) will be leaving us after this meet. The other 19 swimmers will be together in April at Short Course Nationals as well as the many new WSY swimmers that will be joining us in Fort Lauderdale. Last night in finals (all video of all finals races is here), we started off with a great 800 free from Claire (results), during the morning distance events Ryan Turner swam his best time in his mile going 17:34.19, and Maddie Hopch scored 13th place with her best time in the 800 going 9:32.00. Next up was the 100 fly. Leah and Emily were in the final heat and BOTH girls swam to their lifetime best times (results). Leah set a new National record going 1:00.49, and Emily 1:04.12. The young 14 year old that Leah swam against (who previously held the National record - her name is Hayley Lips (video here of her interview) does remind me of Leah when she was 14. Hayley swims for a good friend Peter Wright in Spartansville, South Carolina. Kevie/Kev Marsteller also had one of the best finishes of any race in the years I have known Kevin in his 100 fly. With about 4 more feet of the pool, Kevin would have won this race (results), however settled for 2nd going 56.95, and team mate Harry Foster got 4th. Justin "JB" Beegle made his first National final in the 200 breastroke (results) going 2:28 (6th place). JB had a huge cheering section behind his lane of many WSY swimmers due to his status as "The King". The WSY 200 freestylers were very strong, both prelims and finals. First year national qualifier Carrigan Eckels swam to a best time in prelims going 2:15, and Lauren, Emily and Claire swam for evening swims in their 200 freestyle's. (Results). These three times should really help our 800 free relay (which will be swum tonight - Thursday).

The final event of the day was the 400 freestyle relays. I know some of you reading this blog have been to this meet previously, but the aura surrounding the relays can not be described. Eact team only gets one relay, which means only 4 swimmers can represent your team. Everyone swims very fast in relays. All of the swimmers want to be on the relay that represents the team. The 400 free relays at this session were no different. The girls went first. We went in as the first seed, but we knew that Spartansburg was making some switches to attempt to knock off WSY. Lauren, Claire, Steph, and Leah knew they had a shot at winning, and I think the National record was in sight. (Here is the video that describes it the best). In the end, the girls got 1st place, and crushed the National record. The WSY men were up next. This was a very competitive field. Harry, Kevin, Ben, and Eric had a tough order. (results). In the end, we had some great splits and ended up 5th.

Our team meetings have been going great and we do have some more video from each of these meetings. Tonight's finals session (Thursday) should be great, and then we move into the final day of competition (Friday).

Oh wait.......I think the biggest problem yesterday was the blow up of my coffee machine in the room. I think I told you that the coffee machine "ran over" the day before......well yesterday (Wednesday) it would not start. It was 4:20am, and I do not have any coffee. I knew there was nothing open around the hotel, so.....visualize me yelling at this coffee machine while Coach Scott is attempting to sleep. He finally woke up and said "Mike....the coffee machine does not have vocal chords, it can not yell back at you". So I went over to the pool, got in line (there were 4 coaches in front of me), and finally got in the pool area at 5:45am and guess what......no coffee was available in the pool area. Being the patient person I am, I waited until I say the large coffee pot in the hospitality area, waited a few minutes for the line to go down, and then walked in the hospitality room. Can you believe the thermos filled with coffee was empty???? I was fuming. I ran out of the room and told, Coach Kim and Kristin that I was running out to Starbucks. At last.....3 hours after I started the day I had a hot cup of coffee. To end this saga......we got back to the room after the morning prelims, and I brought the hotel maid to my room to show her my coffee machine would not work. I put my finger on the button to start the machine, and guess what.....IT STARTED TO WORK IMMEDIATELY. I lost it at that point. Thanks to coach Scott, I calmed down.

Thanks for reading, the coffee machine works, WSY swimmers are swimming fast, we have a great WSY parent cheering section at the meet, and yes I am having alot of fun!!!! More later

Mike