Swimming Around the DMV

By Reach for the Wall Staff

There was a lot of activity in and around the DMV from the last week of July through today, here’s a quick rundown of some of the big meets and events (we may have missed a few):

PVS Excels at Futures: NCAP takes top Team Honors!

July 29-August 1, USA Swimming held the Futures at the Collegiate School Aquatic Center. The meet, which features some of the country’s top age-group athletes, was offered at 4 sites across the country, Santa Clarita, CA, Fargo, ND, Huntsville, AL and Richmond, VA.

Over 100 teams competed in Richmond, including these clubs from PVS: All Star Aquatics, Arlington Aquatics, Dragon Swim Team, Rockville Montgomery, The Fish, Machine, and Nations Capital. Nation’s Capital swept the team titles, winning the Men’s (267 pts), Women’s (510 pts) and Combined with 777 points! Rockville Montgomery finished 9th, Machine 15th, AAC 37th, All Star 41st and The Fish 51st.

Erin Gemmell, who recently competed at Wave II Olympic Trials, led the way for the NCAP women as she earned the meet High Point award, capturing 1st place in the 200 Freestyle, 18th in the 200 Butterfly, 4th in the 100 Freestyle, 2nd in the 400 IM, 1st in the 200 IM and 1st in the 400 Freestyle! Way to go Erin! Her teammate Camille Spink, also a Wave II competitor, won the 100 Freestyle, placed 3rd in the 200, and opted out of finals in her other two individual events, the 100 Breaststroke & 100 Backstroke. Brett Feyerick (38 pts.) and Landon Gentry (36 pts) led the way for the NCAP men, with Brett taking the top spot in the 100 Backstroke and Landon in the 200 Butterfly. The top point getter for Rockville Montgomery was Everett Oehler (33pts) with his 6th place in the 200 Freestyle, 12th place in the 100 Freestyle, and 4th in the 100 Butterfly. Jane Umhofer (12pts.) was the top scorer for the Women by placing 10th in the 100 Breaststroke and 12th in the 200 Breaststroke. Machine was paced by Paige Hall (67 pts.), her top finishes coming in the 200 Freestyle (6th), 100 Freestyle (7th), 100 Backstroke (7th), 200 IM (4th) and 200 Backstroke (4th). Arlington Aquatic’s Katherine Baily scored in the Women’s 100 Butterfly with her 5th place finish and Aiden Grady for the Men in the 100 Breaststroke, also 5th place! All Star Aquatics top contributions came from Lauren West, who nabbed 5th in the 50 Freestyle, and Alan Li, who placed 9th in the 100 Butterfly. The Fish got their points from two swimmers, Bailey DeLuise in the Men’s 20 0breaststroke (10th place) and Courtney Watts, who placed 10th in the Women’s 800 Freestyle. Congratulations!!

PVS Swimmers take top spots at ISCA Summer Blast

July 27-31, the International Swim Coaches Association (ISCA) held their showcase event: ISCA Summer Senior Blast. which was attended by a few PVS teams: Herndon Aquatics, Mason Makos, Occoquan Swimming, Potomac Marlins and Snow Swimming. Occoquan was the top team from PVS, placing 6th overall with 361.5 points, followed by Mason Makos in 9th with 191 points, and Snow in 36th with 19.5 points. Occoquan’s Sienna Golembiewski (49 pts.) was their top scorer for the Women, placing 7th in the 200 IM, 1st in the 50 Butterfly, 1st in the 100 Butterfly, 2nd in the 50 Freestyle, 11th in the 200 Freestyle, 3rd in the 200 Butterfly and 7th in the 100 Freestyle. Benjamin Huffman (35 pts.) was the top scorer for the Men, placing 9th in the 1,500 Freestyle, 8th in the 50 Butterfly, 5th in the 400 freestyle, 16th in the 100 Butterfly, 8th in the 50 Freestyle, 5th in the 200 Freestyle, 4th in the 800 Freestyle, and 3rd in the 100 Freestyle. His teammate Dawson Truong was just behind, scoring 32 pts., with his top finishes coming in the 100 Breaststroke (2nd), 100 Butterfly (2nd), 50 Freestyle (11th), 50 Breaststroke (1st), and 100 Freestyle (8th). The Mason Makos got top contributions from Katherine Helms (44pts), who was a Wave I Olympic Trial competitor, with her top finishes in the 200 IM (2nd), 400 Freestyle (2nd), 50 Freestyle (2nd), 200 Freestyle (3rd), and 100 Freestyle (2nd). Anthony Grimm (23 pts.), also a Wave I Olympic Trial swimmer, was the top scorer for the Mako Men, placing 3rd in the 50 Butterfly, 6th in the 100 Breaststroke, and 1st in the 50 Backstroke. Snow had three swimmers place in events to score points, Kaitlyn Estes placed 9th in the 100 Backstroke. Cameron Lai-Harris placed 6th in the Men’s 50 Butterfly, 8th in the 50 Backstroke, and 9th in the 50 Freestyle. Victor Pliuskaitis rounded out the scoring for Snow with 9th place in the 200 Freestyle, 5th place in the 800 Freestyle and 12th place in the 200 Butterfly.

Summer Leagues close out their 2021 seasons

The weekend of July 31 ushered the end of the summer league swim season, some with All Star meets, others with Divisional Championships. We received full results from the Colonial Swim League (CSL) as well as their All Star Meet. The CSL has been in operation since 1962 and currently has 24 teams that compete each week across 4 divisions. The Here’s a short write-up from the CSL on their season ending meet:

“It was a beautiful day to close out the 2021 swim season with the inaugural Cory Young CSL All Star Meet. Cory Young passed away this past winter, leaving behind generations of swimmers and computer operators who looked to Cory for tips and techniques. He always knew who was close to setting a record and would give swimmers encouragement to dig deep and swim fast.  In his honor, we have chosen to rename the All Star meet the “Cory Young CSL All Star Meet”.  May all that knew Cory continue to encourage new generations of swimmers to swim fast and to strive to be the best in all they do.   While no new CSL records were set this year, there were five triple winners, uncounted close races, and many personal bests swum. Many thanks to Ashburn Village for hosting a great meet.”

We also received results throughout the season for the Northern Virginial Swim League (NVSL), and they too concluded their season with an All star meet on July 31.

It’s a beautiful day for NVSL All Stars! Thank you to our amazing hosts @CudasSb pic.twitter.com/buYugIk4SG

— NVSL (@swimNVSL) July 31, 2021

From all accounts we could see the NVSL had a spirited and well competed season, with league records broken in the Yards format and 1 relay record in Meters.

The Prince William Swim League closed out their season with the Divisional Championship Meets, we were also fortunate to have results from each week provided during their season. From their website:

“The PWSL’s most unusual season yet ended with some nailbiters across the league’s divisional meets. First place in the white division was decided by just 13 points, and Westridge won yellow division over Victory Lakes by 128 points. There were more close battles for second place, as Red, Blue, and Purple divisions all had less than 100 points separating second and third.
League-wide, over 3000 swimmers participated in divisionals, 700 fewer than pre-pandemic 2019. 45% of swims were faster than their seed time. 16 teams beat 82 team records, and six new league records were posted.”

For Fun!

One of the fun features within our site is you can generate a ranking within an event to see how your time compares across the different summer leagues. For instance, if you wanted to see the top 25 swims in the 13-14 Boys 50 Freestyle, go to our top Navigation, highlight ‘Swimmers’ and select ‘Swimmer Ranking’ from the dropdown. Enter your criteria and hit Search. After the initial Search, Select ‘Advanced’ and you can further filter the results bey selecting the ‘Season’ or other criteria:

Swimmer Ranking

Local Olympians in Tokyo

Of course during all these meets there was another competition going on in Tokyo…y’know the Olympics… We don’t have to run down the results…we’re guessing you were all glued to the TV as much as we were! Here’s a few congratulatory Tweets we saw:

Last night, Phoebe Bacon ’20 took second place in the 200m Backstroke Finals—one hundredth shy of first. Both of our #StoneRidgeOlympicGators, Phoebe Bacon ’20 and Katie Ledecky ’15, swim in tonight’s finals. Phenomenal! #teamUSA #wearesacredheart #swimwithheart #Tokyo2020 pic.twitter.com/lgoqwa6Hc2

— Stone Ridge (@GatorsSR) July 30, 2021

🥇🥈for @TeamUSA in the first-ever @Olympics Women’s 1500m free! 🙌🏼

Thanks everyone for the support over the past few (busy) days! A few more ahead! 💪🏼 Enjoying the racing with @USASwimming and proud of my teammates, let’s keep it going! 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/LlUvY4xqTa— Katie Ledecky (@katieledecky) July 28, 2021

As she should!https://t.co/saTCXr1D6Q— reachforthewall (@rftwdmv) August 4, 2021

There’s a few more meets in progress this week- the Eastern Zone Championship in Richmond, VA (results on Meet Mobile: 2021 VA Eastern Zone LC…) and the 2021 Speedo Summer Championships – Greensboro. Congratulations to all who competed this summer and those who volunteered to make the summer swim season a reality!