[Breeze]

Lanier Invite at Lanier Aquatics 2/8 - 2/10

The Lanier Invite is our "Last Chance" meet for this season. There is actually another meet next week but we elected not to participate in that one, because we didn't want the kids competing 3 weeks in a row (the State Championship would be the 3rd meet in the succession).

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Bear

500 Free - Seed Time 6:41.62, Sectional Cut 6:36.19 - 6 to 8 weeks ago, I really felt that Bear might have a good shot at getting this cut, but given his poor health over that time period, I'm less enthusiastic about his chances. Combine that with the fact, he'll be in a slower pool and in an outside lane, and I think he'll be hard pressed to drop more than a second or two. His freestyle looks good right now, and we'll be working out signals that I can give him with the lap counters so he'll know where he stands compared to the cut, so maybe he'll be able to dig deep and pull it out.

100 Back - Seed Time 1:22.00, Sectional Cut 1:18.09 - Bear is seeded 5th here, and he could end up right next to his buddy Jack, which would be a good thing. Some of Bear's best swims have come when racing Jack. If Bear cleans up his start, turns, and finish, he could drop a decent amount of time here.

50 Fly - Seed Time 39.66 - If you'll recall, Bear has been working on changing his fly stroke for a while, combine that with the time out of the pool due to illness and his fly is currently a mess. He's very upset by that, as fly is his favorite stroke, but he is really off right now. We got him a private lesson over the weekend and some of the issues were addressed. The coach will be watching him closely at practice to see how he does with his form, but if he is unable to completely adopt the new stroke, it is possible she has him scratch here.

50 Freestyle - Seed Time 32.46, Sectional Cut 30.69 - Bear's freestyle looks real good right now, I am eager to see how he does. This is a real big race for Bear because a good swim here should cement him in the A relay at State in a few weeks.

100 IM - Seed Time 1:23.16 - Bear's greatly improved breast combined with the strong back and free should create an improved time here, but the Fly is the wild card...

100 Fly - Seed Time 1:26.59 - My guess is he doesn't swim this race...

100 Free - Seed Time 1:11.90 - could see an improvement in this one, especially if his stamina holds through to this point in the weekend. He's currently seeded 5th here, but a good swim and he could easily be top 3...

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Bailey

50 Fly - Seed Time 36.57, Sectional Time - 35.29 - Bailey comes into this seeded 3rd, only .5 seconds from first. However, this seed time is from December, and Bailey is much faster right now. In fact, over the weekend during Bear's lesson, Bailey was getting some work as well on her Breast, and at 1 point during the practice, the coach had Bailey race Bear in Fly with Bear wearing fins...Bear won, but only by about a half a body length. Bailey's fly is really fast right now and I believe she'll win this event outright and she should get a sectional cut...

100 Breast - Seed time 1:34.77 - coach is trying to narrow Bailey's kick. In an effort to go faster, Bailey did the natural, but worst thing your can do - she started getting a wide kick. Now she's trying to clean that up. She did better with the more narror kick on Sunday during the private lesson, but the speed didn't accompany the improvement yet. We'll see how she does in practice, but I don't expect much here.

50 Free - Seed time 34.19, Sectional time 31.09 - It might seem strange that I included the Sectional time here when she's so far from it and we're only talking about a 50 yard swim. However, Bailey's seed time goes all the way back to November, and she had just started racing freestyle and was under strict orders to maintain form rather than go for speed. Her freestyle is much faster now, and I expect a huge drop in time. I don't however expect a sectional cut...but I posted the time just in case...

100 IM - Seed Time 1:20.77, Sectional Cut 1:19.29 - Bailey is seeded 2nd about 1.5 seconds behind the leader...and in my opinion, this will all come down to the Breast. If she can swim a strong Breast, she'll get the sectional cut and might win the event outright.

50 Breast - Seed time 44:34 - not sure what to expect here. My guess is a very similar time to her personal best...

50 Back - Seed time 38.25 - Bailey's back is getting much better as she's beginning to grasp the correct arm motion. Her strong kick is back and combined I could see a nice improvement here...

100 Free - Seed time 1:09.97, Sectional Cut 1:09.09 - Bailey is seeded 3rd here and is only .3 from second. Hopefully, she'll be able to keep up with the #1 seed who swims a 1:18.10 and that will pace her to another sectional cut.

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Brett

200 IM - Seed time 3:00.71 - Brett had an amazing practice on Saturday. His kicking with fins has gotten dramatically better. He still needs to figure out how to translate that into speed without fins, but it is a start. His improved kick and strokes should lead to a personal best here.

100 Back - Seed time 1:24.03 - Again the form is much better. Given that he's doing a nice job of keeping up with his buddies Hunter and Jack (both good backstrokers) in practice, if he'll maintain his flutter kick and not resort to the bicycle kick he'll probably post another personal best.

100 Free - Seed Time 1:11.85 - If any of the speed on his free kick with fins from Saturday will translate to this race, he'll absolutely post a personal best. Not sure it will though...

1000 Free - NT - Brett has never even swum the 500, but he's doing the 1000 this weekend. He's not excited about it, but the coach told him to just finish and not worry about his time. He'll probably go out very conservatively...so I don't expect anything special here. However, his free stroke is very much a distance free swimmers pace and form. He actually could do good here, if he puts some effort into it...

100 Fly - Seed time 1:31.56 - During Brett's private lesson on Sunday, the coach told him he was doing very good with this fly stroke, but to really work on getting this hips up when he was in the dive portion of the stroke, to create more leverage for the kick. I don't expect an improvement here, as his lack of strength tends to catch up to him before this race finishes. But I do expect better early splits...

200 Free - Seed time 2:34.09 - If Brett will push himself and kick a bit more than normal he could improve here. Of course the 100 fly right before might just sap his energy...

50 Free - Seed time 34.21 - Brett is really ready to drop a couple of seconds here, but he has to work harder and rotate his arms faster. I hope he does it, because he'll be pumped if he can get down to a sub 33 here...

50 Breast - 39.50, State Cut 39.29 - Not likely Brett cuts 1.3 second, but his coach has told him better pullouts and quicker turns could save him a couple of seconds. I hope he's right...I'd love to see Brett earn another cut...plus a strong swim here will go a long way to getting him on the State Relay team...