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Summer Swim Team - County Meet
I don't want to confuse things by getting ahead of myself on the schedule, but this is the part of the Summer League that is extremely exciting, nerve racking and has a considerable amount of drama. We have seen some amazing things at the county meet, and in fact, it is our results here that led us to being year round swimmers (I'll gladly narrate some of the past results if anyone is interested, but I wasn't planning on going into the past. Just let me know if you'd like me to go into those races). Anyway, the reason for this post is...it is time for the kids to choose which events they are going to swim at county. In the county meet, each kid may choose 2 events and exhibition 1 (to explain: when a kid exhibitions a swim, they are not allowed to win the event even if they have the fastest time, but they do qualify for the right to be on the appropriate relay based on their time). This is from a statisical perspective a very interesting time, because based on what other good swimmers choose to compete in, the field to qualify for the county team can be VERY strong...or extremely easy...
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Bear
Bear is absolutely planning to swim the fly, and why not. If he can continue to duplicate his 16.22 from the first Summer meet, he should make the county team. Bear finished 4th in the fly last year as a 9 year old in the 9/10 age group and two of the kids that finished in front of him aged up. The one that returns is exceptional...and he finished 8th in the state last year (was the fastest 9 year old at state), and he is probably the favorite to win the state championship this year (his time last year as a 9 year old was @ 15.5). Bear's 16.2 time is typically right on the cusp of making the state finals (fastest 8 times in preliminaries).
As for Bear's second stroke. He's wrestling between IM and Back. Both are good choices but I think he should swim back, and here is why...
- The IM will most likely have the same kid that swims the 15.5 second fly from last year, and Bear's not going to beat him
- There is a second kid that moved into the county that has a 1:22.xx time in the IM...Bear is @ 1:25.xx, and while he is good at coming up big, that is asking a lot. Plus with these two out there, he'd have to beat the rest of the field to get to state.
- If he were to make it to state, he'd need to swim @ a 1:20 flat to get into the finals, and I've seen him drop tons of time when he needed to, but I can't expect that from the kid
- In back, his best time would have put him 3rd last year...and the fastest returning swimmer in the stroke wasn't as fast as Bear's best last year (Bear slipped on the start last year and it cost him...)
- Bear's best time in the back is boarderline finalist in state...
Bear will exhibition the sprint Free in hopes of getting on the Free Relay. His best time would put him 8th, which is the B relay and typically good enough to get to the finals and earn a medal (anybody that swims the finals gets a medal)
Will update this once he makes a decision...
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Brett
Brett will obviously swim the Breast, but this will be the first time he won't represent the county at the state meet. He's best time would put him @ 10th last year. This year the group won't be as strong (I don't think), but he'll still do well to finish 7th...
Not sure which other stroke Brett will choose. He's leaning toward IM to help the team get as many points as possible (fewer IM Swimmers so the chance of earning better points goes up)
He'll also swim the sprint free as exhibition, but he has no shot of getting on a relay
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Bailey
Here is my kid that will have the toughest time...mostly because the number of girl year round swimmers is exceptionally high and there are so many that are about even with Bailey in ability.
Bailey will swim the fly, as this is her best stroke right now...but unfortunately, her best time 16.2 puts her in a large group of sub 16.5 second swimmers. Not sure who's going swim it at county, but regardless it is going to be a tight one. Interestingly, this will be a very strong Fly this year. Last year 16.22 would have finished 2nd by .8 seconds...and it is typically good enough to be a borderline state finalist...
Bailey's second stroke is up in the air. It looks like she'll choose between IM and Breast...I'm not sure what to advise here. Unfortunately I think she'll finish around 5th in either race...
We are working on trying to improve her catch in the Free, hopefully, we'll get that and her sprint free time will drop. As it stands, her free would have put her 5th last year. This year things will be tougher, but baring something strange, she should get top 12 and on a Free Relay...hoping to get sub 15 so we can potenially make the A or B relay...
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