[Breeze]

2015 Georgia Age Group State Championship – Day 2 Preliminaries

#25 Girls 12&U 200 Medley Relay

Gold A Relay - 2:05.42 : Seeded 10 – The race started and Salmon on the back, opened with a 31.73, which was only the 11th best time in that leg out of the 23 teams and Gold found themselves in last place in their heat (but honestly, the split was a personal best for Salmon, so not a bad swim). Julia took off on the breast, and it became pretty obvious, pretty quickly, she was going to outswim her seed time of 35.03, and she did, by about 2 seconds, posting a 32.93 leg, and moving the team up from 10th in the heat to 5th. Bailey dove in, and she swam a strong 28.61 split, but she was out-touched at the wall by a girl who left a fraction of a second behind her. The freestyler swam a 27.81 and held on to the 6th spot. 2:01.08 was the time, a huge improvement over the seed time and a huge improvement from 10th to 6th. Also the time actually beats the 2014 A team, and I wouldn’t have guessed that was possible coming in.


#26 Boys 12&U 200 Medley Relay

Gold A Relay – 2:01.57 : Seeded 3 – This was a tightly seeded event, with Gold 3rd but 2 other teams were less than a second behind. The race started with Nicklas in back getting a poor start. The poor start put him behind several of the teams that were seeded close to Gold. He caught and passed a couple teams in the middle of the pool, but when his leg finished Gold A sat in 4th. The breaststroker Griffen was slow off the blocks in the transition, but he maintained 4th. Bear swam his leg in 29.65, but was unable to close, in fact, he lost ground to the 3 leaders and to the 5th place team, as all of those flyers swam under 28 seconds. The anchor, Nate, was extremely strong, trying to swim down the teams ahead of him. He closed with a 23.96, but he couldn’t catch the team in third, so they had to settle for fourth with a time of 1:56.35. However, the team in 3rd was disqualified because the breaststroker left early, and so Gold A got the bronze medal after all – They also got the Gold Team Record for this event.


#30 Boys 11-12 200 Free

Bear - 2:05.15 : Seeded 10 – This was a real quick turnaround for Bear. He probably had less than 20 minutes rest. Not that the 50 fly he swam was so taxing, but doing a 200 sprint while still recovering isn’t ideal. Of course my worrying was for nothing. Bear opened with a 28.57 (basically the same time as his personal best coming into this weekend), the followed it up with a 31.16. The back half was comprised of 30.77 and 30.55. He finished with a 2:01.05 and was seeded 5th headed to finals that night.


#33 Girls 11-12 100 Back

Bailey – 1:07.32 : Seeded 21 – In this event, it looked like Bailey was at a practice session. Slow deliberate arm rotations…long efficient, but effort could have been better. She actually added a bit of time finishing with a 1:08.44. Because she came in seeded 21st, I don’t think there was any urgency for this swim, and with the 50 fly up next, I suspect, though she hasn’t admitted it, that she was conserving something for that race. She ended up in 23rd place.


#41 Girls 11-12 50 Fly

Bailey – 29:71 : Seeded 19 – I mentioned in the pre-event write up “It would take a monumental drop for her to even sniff the top 10.” Well…Bailey started this race with her typical too deep dive. However, she did manage to surface in contention anyway. At the turn she was running about 8th, but after the turn she managed to get up to 5th - awesome quickness on the flip and really strong underwaters. She ended up finishing the heat in 4th with a time of 28.82. She wanted to get under 29 and she did. This also makes her fly personal best almost identical to her free personal best. When all the heats were finished, she ended up – 11th. So it was a monumental effort, but it came up just short.


#42 Boys 11-12 50 Fly

Bear – 30.00 : Seeded 12 – Bear’s 50 fly looked exactly like the fly he swam in the 200 IM, and the fly he swam in the 200 Medley Relay - strong and steady, but not quick. He finished with a 30.06, adding a fraction of a second, and slipping to 14th overall.


#49 Girls 11-12 400 IM

Bailey - 5:13.12 : Seeded 12 – Bailey’s strong swimming so far, had her pumped up about possibly getting top 10 in this event. She started with the fly leg and she went 1:06.78. Honestly, this is slower than I would have expected. Then her backstroke was reminiscent of her back in the 200 IM or the 100 Back, long and deliberate for a split of 1:16.44. At this point I felt she had no shot at the top 10. Her breast was typical 1:32.32, then she closed with a 1:09+ freestyle. This ends up being a huge improvement of around 9 seconds, but it seemed she left something in the pool. The swim time of 5:04.66 was good enough for 11th, but she just missed 10th by .27 seconds.


#45 Girls 12&U 200 Free Relay

Gold A Team – 1:54.10 : Seeded 13 – Because the Gold team was seeded 13, they didn’t make the fast heat and were forced to swim against some pretty poor teams. Ultimately, this could have negatively impacted them if they allowed themselves to be influenced by the competition, rather than just swimming their fastest race. The race started with Gold sending their 4th swimmer to the blocks first. She swam a 28.27, which was about .6 seconds faster than her previous personal best. The rest of the team followed with all of them swimming low 27s…they won their heat going away, and as it turns out, they beat over half the pool in the fast heat as well. Their time of 1:50.05 was good enough for 6th…a big jump up from the seed spot of 13th.


#46 Boys 12&U 200 Free Relay

Gold A Team – 1:46.21 : Seeded 2 – This was another tight one coming in with 6 teams within a couple seconds of each other. Nicklas led off and swam a strong 26.06, and the team is in basically a dead heat with 2 other teams for second. Bear was second and he swam a strong 26.37, which put the team in a tight 3rd, only half a second out of second but only .2 ahead of 3rd place. The 3rd swimmer was Jack A, who posted a time of 26.66, but the team lost ground to two teams, but they only lost 1 spot as one of the lead teams clearly put their two best swimmers out front and their 3rd leg fell way off the pace. The anchor for Gold, Nate dove in 4th place, only an eye blink out of 3rd and about a full second out of 2rd place, and 2.5 seconds out of first, but he immediately started chewing into their lead. The 3rd place team was quickly left behind and the only question would be if Nate had enough pool to reel in the leaders. At the end of the race Gold posted a 1:43.27, basically 1 second behind first and second, as the race was decided by only .06. The time while only good enough for a bronze medal, did break the Gold Team Record for this event.