Weekend Roundup (12/7-12/10)
By Reach for the Wall Staff
Swimmers in the DMV had opportunities to race all around the area as well as across the country. For the Club swimmers, there were two Championship meets to choose from locally and outside the DMV, the USA Swimming Winter Junior Nationals in Columbus, Ohio (Ohio State). We’ll start with Jr. Nationals, where 3 PVS Clubs: All Star Aquatics, Arlington Aquatics, and Machine Aquatics, made the trip to the McCorkle Aquatic Pavilion to compete against some of the best 18 & Unders in the US. All star Aquatics finished 26th overall with Virginia Hinds and Kyle Wang contributing to the team scoring. Here’s the list of swimmers and their events/places, Congratulations!!
Virginia Hinds ASA: 100 Back (4th), 200 Back (18th), 50 Free (72nd), 100 Free (78th)
Cameron House ASA: 100 Breast (54th), 200 Breast (72nd)
Madeleine Simmons ASA: 200 IM (52nd), 400 IM(26th), 100 Fly (86th), 200 Fly (22nd)
Kyle Wang ASA: 100 Fly (58th), 200 Fly (13th), 200 Free (86th)
Kate Douglass AAC: 100 Back (92nd), 100 Free (98th), 50 Free (102nd)
Sophie Fredericks AAC: 200 IM (112th), 100 Fly (28th), 200 Fly (43rd)
Catherine Hughes AAC: 100 Breast (25th), 200 Breast (39th)
Evan Ingraham AAC: 100 Fly (110th), 100 Back (94th), 200 Back (96th)
Malcolm McKenzie AAC: 50 Free (73rd), 100 Fly (41st), 100 Free (51st)
Caleb Wolf AAC: 100 Fly (97th), 200 Free (115th), 200 Fly (59th)
Joshua Wolf AAC: 100 Fly (108th), 100 Back (103rd), 100 Free (110th)
Nina Wysocki AAC: 100 Breast (82nd), 200 Breast (78th)
Elizabeth Bryan MACH: 200 IM (45th), 100 Breast (50th), 200 Back (42nd), 200 Breast (59th)
Aleena Stukus MACH: 200 IM (93rd), 100 Breast (33rd), 100 Free (90th)
Ginger Strickland FISH: 500 Free (65th), 1650 Free (25th)
Kyle Li UNAT: 100 Breast (90th), 200 Breast (71st)
December 7-10th, NCAP hosted their annual Invitational meet where teams from Delaware, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and New York converge on the Eppley Recreation Center at the University of Maryland to compete with some of the best in PVS. NCAP captured the team title, followed by Long Island Aquatic Club (NY), Asphalt Green (NY) and Machine.
In the past, former (and future) Olympians have used this meet as a mid-season check in point and this year Kieran Smith (Ridgefield Aquatics/Florida), made an appearance. He swam two individual events- 200 Free- 1:31.92 and the 500 Free 4:11.75. Both times eclipse the PVS Open records in those events where the 200 free was held by Jack Conger (1:34.16) and the 500 was held by Andrew Seliskar (4:16.17). SwimSwam provided a recap of the meet highlighting other outstanding swimmers and swims- Congratulations!!
On the other side of the river, the Potomac Marlins hosted the annual Sport Fair Winter Classic, with teams attending from Pennsylvania, Baltimore, Annapolis and Northern Virginia. York Swim Club outdistanced Arlington Aquatic Club by a mere 72 points for the overall team title, followed by MAKO and Columbia Aquatics Association.
MAKO’s Sadie Buckley (14) had a fantastic meet achieving best times across the board while competing in the Girls Open events. She placed 1st in everything but the 200 Free where she finished 2nd in a personal best 1:50.33 (#9 in 13-14 USA Swimming ranking). Here’s a rundown of her other times/rankings in the 13-14 age group:
- 200 Back: 1:57.74, #3 ranking
- 500 Free: 4:56.52, #10 ranking
- 200 IM: 2:02.59 #6 ranking
- 100 Back: 55.25 #11 ranking
High School Swimming
December 9th was the opening weekend of dual meets for Montgomery County MD public high schools. We have the results on our site: December 9 meets. (Note there were two meets held earlier in the week, Dec 6th and Dec 7th, not included in the link above) While most of the swims were typical for an early season dual meet, there were a few standouts. Churchill’s Nasim Elkassem sprinted to a 21.65 50 Free, Magruder’s Evan Mackesy posting a 47.43 in the 100 Free and 1:40.37 in the 200 Free. Lastly, Richard Montgomery’s Elliot Lee swam a 1:51.13 in the 200 IM…all times that would score in the top 10 at year-end meets!
If you are reading this and asking yourself…’why aren’t my high school meet results included?’…the likely answer is we don’t have access to your results. In order for us to post results on our site we need the meet manger results file (Coaches/meet automation volunteers know this is the zip file extract from meet manager). Go ahead and tell your coach to send results to: operations@reachforthewall.org and we’ll get them in the system.