MCSL Week 2 Recap

By Annabel Redisch and Ally Navarrete

Week 2 of the MCSL season is complete. This week, we saw many close meets and impressive swims across the county. Here’s a recap of what went down across MCSL pools on Saturday.

Meet Results

The closest meet in the league this week came from Division C. Tilden Woods overtook Mill Creek Towne by a slim margin of 5 points. Meets like this are some of the most exciting to watch, and often come down to the results of the end relays—TW’s graduated relays placed first on both the boys and girls side.

Another close meet was in Division F with Inverness Recreation Club beating out Kenmont by 7 points. After a tough loss last week, this result was exciting for #6 seed Inverness, proving that they could hold their own in this division after jumping up from Division I last season.

In Division H, all three meets were extremely close. The largest margin was only 15 points in the Chevy Chase Recreation Association v. Forest Knolls meet, where FO came out on top. Seven Locks defeated Hollowell by a mere 8 points and Clopper Mill Kingsview beat out Manchester Farm by just 11 points. With relay carnivals coming up, this division should be exciting to watch because of all the close competition.

Upper County extended its winning streak to two meets in Division M, beating out Long Branch. This is exciting to see as UC is gradually working its way back up through the divisions.

Following their merger with Wheaton Woods, the Twinbrook Ducks are performing very well in Division O. After this week, they have a two-week winning streak, and their results are looking very promising despite coming into the division as the #4 seed.

Stand-out swims

In the girls 12&U 100 IM, Rockshire’s Madison Kelly (12) and Jingjing Wu (12) both posted best times this weekend and are the #1 and #2 seeds in the county. Kelly and Wu are just .07 seconds apart, and this is incredibly impressive for one team to have two swimmers leading an event so closely.

Andrew Vanas (10) from Washingtonian Woods posted a best time this weekend of 31.28 in the boys 9-10 50 free, breaking the 32 mark, and he currently sits at #1 in MCSL.

In the girls 15-18 100 free, Bannockburn’s Valerie Mello (15) dropped an impressive 4 seconds to go 1:00.10, moving her up to #2 in the league. This is promising for a Week 2 swim, and it should be exciting to see her potentially get under the 1:00 mark in the coming weeks.

Griffin Oehler (10) from Woodley Gardens is currently #1 in the county by 1.16 seconds in the boys 9-10 25 back, an incredible gap in a 25. His time is 16.48, a .73 second drop from Week 1. He is currently .90 seconds off the MCSL record.

Tallyho’s Phoebe Bacon (16) started off her MCSL season with a 1:00.46 in the girls 15-18 100 back, just .24 off of her MCSL record from 2018, (1:00.22). Bacon also sits 6.22 seconds in front of her closest competitor in this event.

Finally, Brady Bagshaw (14) from Cedarbrook dropped 1.50 seconds in the boys 13-14 50 breaststroke to go 31.84, and he moved to the #1 spot in the county.

Looking forward

Two words: RELAY CARNIVAL!

In the next three weeks, relay carnivals will occur across all divisions in MCSL. Keep an eye out for results coming quickly, especially from Division D, which will host its relay carnival Monday (6/24) at night.

Shoutout to all the coaches across MCSL who are working hard and making tough decisions as they put together the most stressful line-up of the year!

Additionally, with Week 3 comes the last chance to qualify for Coaches Long Course, meaning on Saturday, June 29 we should see some extremely fast times as swimmers vie to make the top 8 in MCSL.