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Old 02-19-2015, 10:38 AM   #561
Breeze
Grizzled Veteran
 
Join Date: Oct 2002
Location: Northern Suburbs of ATL
2015 Georgia Age Group State Championship – Day 2 Finals

#50 Boys 11-12 400 IM

Bear – 5:00.98 : Seeded 3 – This session started off with the 400 IM, which was a surprise to everyone. , given that the first race listed in the heat sheet was event #29…caught us a little off guard and caused a problem for Bear, but more on that later. The race started out with the Fly and when that opening 100 ended, Bear was in second place after a split of 1:04.83. In the backstroke leg, bear swam another good split of 1:13.31, but he slipped back to third about a second behind second place, heading into his weakest stroke – breast. Bear did an excellent job fighting to stay in contact with the leaders. He managed to swim the 100 breast split in 1:24.39 – for point of reference his personal best in the 100 breast is a 1:23.97. Unfortunately, despite his strong breast, Bear found himself a distant 4th…around 3 seconds out of 3rd and 3.5 out of second (first place was a runaway at this point). Bear was so far behind when the freestyle started that the announcer stated that Brendan (mentioned earlier in the 1000 free) was going to win the event, but that there was a great battle for second between the two swimmers Bear was trailing. Bear was a complete afterthought. At the end of the first 50 in the free leg, Bear had closed to 2 seconds behind 2nd place, and 1.8 behind 3rd – and he was charging. As Bear was heading into the final turn the announcer recognized the charge, and started yelling , and Bear is coming on strong…heading down the stretch with every stroke Bear ate into the 2nd and 3rd place swimmers lead. As they reached for the wall here were their times:

Spoiler


#30 Boys 11-12 200 Free

Bear – 2:01.05 – Seeded 5th – Remember above when I said the switching of the 400 IM to the first event of the evening really impacted Bear. Well the second event of the evening was the 200 Free. After his furious charge to try and earn a medal, Bear got about 15 minutes to rest before he hit the pool again for this event. It was unfortunate, because the fatigue was obvious. He did manage to go Sub60 in the opening 100, but fell off to a 1:03 back half, settling for a 2:03.33 and 9th place. If he had more time to recover he would have had a good chance to hang on to 5th, might have challenged for 4th, and probably would have done no worse than 6th.


#65 Girls 12&U 400 Medley Relay

Gold A Team – 4:23.86 – Seeded 8th – Salmon started off the backstroke again, and she swam a 1:07.08, which was a personal best time, but still put the relay way behind the top teams. In fact, the Gold A team found themselves in 8th. Julia in breast did a 1:13.61 and moved the team up to 6th. Bailey’s split in the fly was a 1:03.56, which put them in 5th. Then the freestyler held on closing in a 59.61. The team finished 5th with a time of 4:23.86, a nice jump from the pre-race seed. Also the time was much faster than last year’s Gold A team.


#66 Boys 12&U 400 Medley Relay

Gold A Team – 4:18.94 : Seeded 3rd – Nicklas started off in the back and swam a very strong 1:03.32. When he got to the wall, the team was solidly in second place, over a second up on the 3rd place team. The second in the water was Grant 2. In the preview of this event, I noted the concern with Grant swimming this leg, due to his history of mailing in his swims, and hoping that Griffin would get moved into this slot before the race. Well the change wasn’t made, despite the fact that Griffin beat Grant in the 50 and 200 Breasts earlier during the meet – and the failure to make that change was huge. In Grant’s defense, he didn’t mail in the swim, rather he tried way to hard, overworking the stroke and going no-where. He finished with a time of 1:17.02 and the team fell all the way to a 5th. In fact, on the strength of Griffins 1:13.32 split the Gold B team was in 6th and only .4 seconds behind the A team. Bear managed a 1:04.83 split in the fly – still 5th, but with a good 2.5 second lead on the Gold B team. Then Nate hit the water for the free leg, and just like the 200 Medley, he immediately began eating into the lead. By the first 50, he was already in a dead heat for 4th and only .6 from 3rd. He blew by both of those teams in the back half and was closing hard on second place, only getting out-touched by .4 seconds. So Gold’s A team took another bronze with a time of 4:17.59 – and they broke another Gold Team Record.


Total Points Earned

Bailey - 7
Bear - 21
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