Swim Like A Champion (a real life journal)

[JonInMiddleGA]

Still following, still rooting for good things.

Just kinda hard to come up with something to say sometimes, what with the low blows he's been up against.

[Breeze]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Still following, still rooting for good things.

Just kinda hard to come up with something to say sometimes, what with the low blows he's been up against.

Thanks Jon, there also hasn't been a ton going on...so not much fun stuff to report. Hopefully, the team gets through a half season in the spring semester. This is the longest I've gone without seeing the kids in a swim meet since they were around 5 years old.

[Breeze]

Berry College - Winter Training Part 1 Update

Looks like one of the swimmers at winter training tested positive for Covid yesterday. Apparently, he hadn't been feeling well for a few days, but all his prior Covid tests came back negative. The result is - the entire swim team has now been exposed. Bear isn't sure what this is going to mean for training/quarantining. He's going to go get an antibodies test, which should free him up to either keep training or come home depending on what the school/coach does.

[Breeze]

Berry College - Winter Training Part 1 Update

The swimmer that tested positive and 4 other swimmers, including Bear's roommate were sent home (along with about half of the women's team). Bear is currently in a semi-quarantine while he awaits results on his Covid and antibodies test.

This is a huge problem for the team, as these 2 weeks along with the 2 after Christmas were earmarked as the period the team would ramp up into meet shape. Now a significant portion of swimmers are out, and quite honestly, I'll be surprised if some of the remaining swimmers don't end up getting sick.

[Breeze]

Berry College - Winter Training Part 1 Update

Bear's Covid test came back clean, but his antibodies test came back negative as well. We talked to our friend who's a Captain at the CDC and she said it sometimes takes up to 3 weeks after having Covid for the antibodies to show up on the test. So despite the fact that Bear was most likely just sick with Covid just over a week ago, the team sent him home per NCAA guidelines. Bear of course, wanting to protect me has gone back to his aunt and uncles until we are sure he's clear to come home.

[Breeze]

Berry College - Winter Training Part 1 Update

Following the swimmer with the positive test, Berry sent 5 boys (Bear included) and about 8 women home. However, despite their best efforts another swimmer contracted the disease, and the AD's response was to send the entire team home. They will meet again in early January and try to ramp back up, but this will put a huge dent in their conditioning.

[Breeze]

Berry College - Winter Training Session 2 - Update

Bear returned to school today for the second phase of winter training. Only problem is, because he tested positive for Covid, there is a re-introductory period he must follow before he gets fully released. The idea, I believe it to protect the student from the covid heart related issues that have been reported. Therefore, Bear is supposed to ease back into workouts (funny given he played pickleball for 3 hours last night).

He will start with the following:

Stage 3 - 70% heart rate
Day 1 - stationary bike for 15 minutes
Day 2 - run outside for 15 minutes

Stage 4 - 80% heart rate
Day 3 - stationary bike for 15 min, light bodyweight exercises for 15 min.
Day 4 - outdoor jog 30 min

Stage 5 - 80% heart rate
Day 5 - 30 minutes swimming, 15 minute weight lifting (upper body)
Day 6 - 30 minutes swimming, 15 minute weight lifting (lower body)

Stage 6 - 80% heart rate
Day 7 - 30 minutes swimming, 30 minutes weight lifting (upper body)
Day 8 - 30 minutes swimming, 30 minutes weight lifting (lower body)

Stage 7
Day 9 - Return to full practice

This is way over conservative given the exercise he's been getting. It's not like he just recovered and they need to ease him back into things. Hopefully, he can convince them to adjust this to move him straight to Stage 6 to start, or something more aggressive. If not this will just further hinder his ability to get in shape.

[Breeze]

Berry College vs. Birmingham Southern vs. University of Montevallo @ Birmingham Crossplex - 1/8

The first meet of the season is today, but Bear won't be competing. He's still in the Covid recovery protocol. Moreover, the team isn't going to do well, as they've only been the water for a couple of days compared to Birmingham Southern who actually had a meet in November (plus they are the best team in conference.

[Breeze]

General Update - Bear

Bear was just released for a full practice yesterday, and the practice consisted of 33 - 100s. 1 easy, 1 moderate, 1 hard, 1 easy, 1 moderate, 2 hard, 1 easy, 1 moderate, 3 hard, etc. Of course at the end of this Bear got out of the pool and puked. Not surprising given he wasn't even doing a full warm up prior to yesterday. It's going to be long road back for him.

[rjolley]

Glad to hear Bear's back in the pool. Hope the road to being back in form is smooth.

[Breeze]

2020-21 Berry Viking Men’s Swimming Roster

The Berry mens’ team roster is outlined below. It’s very difficult to pinpoint what class each swimmer is actually in because many come into school, like Bear, with college credits already in place. Moreover, with Covid, this season actually doesn’t count towards eligibility, so forecasting who will return next year is going to be extremely difficult. Moreover, because swimmers have gotten so little time in-pool training, I have no idea what to expect from them performance wise. It’s a little disappointing, I would have loved to see Bear swimming with some of the top seniors when they were all in peak condition. This could have been a pretty special team this year.


Alex Bartik (So.)
Alex is a nice swimmer who helps significantly with depth, especially in this conference where each team fields 2 relays. Alex has solid but not spectacular 100 times in all 4 strokes, so his primary races are the IMs. He finished 10th (200 IM) and 8th (400 IM) at conference championships last year. His 3rd event last year was the 200 breast and he managed to get 11th. Overall, last year he managed a very nice 24 points for the team during conference championships.

Cole Beddingfield (Sr.)
Cole is a combination swimmer/diver. He’s been a very good butterflier in the past, one that typically goes out extremely fast and dies coming home (especially in the 200 fly). This year could be a tough year for him as he’ll struggle to get in the shape needed to pull off that style of race. Moreover, given he’s a senior it might be a bit tough to motivate himself for the effort it takes to be great in the fly, especially when he’s been past on the depth chart so to speak (more on that later). However, should he get in shape he’s a threat to do well, as he finished 5th in both the 100 and 200 flys in conference last year and he was 7th in diving totaling 40 points.

Michael Bemis (Sr.)
This is one of the senior swimmers that I was excited to watch. Bemis is a sprint freestyler and multiple time conference champion. He has finished in the top 3 of every 50 and 100 conference freestyle race since his arrival in ‘17/’18. He’s also won the 50 twice (including last year) and the 100 once. He is positioned to challenge for the conference championships again this year, and his early returns show he’s not in peak shape, but he could still get there before late February. Michael was second on the team in points at conference with 47.5.

Noah Brand (So.)
Noah is a classic fly/free swimmer, but he’s already made a name for himself as a flyer in conference. He managed to finish 3rd in the 100 and 2nd in the 200 as a Freshman. His 3rd event was the 50 free and he placed 10th in that event. Noah’s free sprints give him a shot to be on the A free relays (though it’ll be a tight battle to see who ends up with those slots moving forward). With a few new sprint specialists added to the team, Noah’s versatility might move his 3rd event to something new. He managed to earn 40 points in conference last year.

Riley Coker (Jr.)
Riley is similar to Alex Bartik only not quite as good. He has no really weak stroke, but he doesn’t have any you would qualify as strong either. As is usual with swimmers like this, they help the team by working hard. Riley did yeoman’s work in conference championships, swimming the 3 longest races possible, the 500 & 1650 Free and the 400 IM. He turned in good enough performances to earn 17 points.

Bo Dyer (Sr.)
Bo is a very good swimmer who is strong in sprint free and back, but he ended up filling the breaststroke role for the team last year. His breaststroke is good (was definitely the best on the team last year), but it’s hardly his best event. He missed A finals in both the breast events finishing 11th in the 100 and 9th in the 200. In the 200 IM, which is definitely a strong event for him, he managed to finish 5th. It will be interesting to see if the coach leaves Bo in breast this season. It’s still a weak spot for the team so maybe. In all Bo earned 27 points at conference in 2020.

Kevin Fuentes-Bonilla (So.)
Kevin is a diver only, and he wasn’t on the team in 2020 so I have no idea what sort of impact he’ll have on the team.

Hunter Kenny (Fr.)
Hunter is the first of a strong freshman class. Hunter actually lives only a few miles from us, and should have gone to school with Bear, but he was home schooled. Hunter is a strong sprint freestyler, good enough to potentially make A finals in conference as a freshman in the very tough 50 and 100 Frees. The remainder of his strokes are average at best. In fact, he might have difficulty scoring in his 3rd event this year. It will be interesting to see what coach does with him through the years to develop another race.

Ryan MacKinnon (Fr.)
Ryan is the second member of the strong freshman class. He comes in as a multi-stroke swimmer, who is battling for top breaststroker on the team. He’ll almost certainly fill a breast/IM role, I’m just not sure if he’ll do 2 Breast events and 1 IM or the other way around.

Harrison McNeil (Fr.)
Here is the 3rd strong member of the freshman class. McNeil’s personal bests are very similar to Hunter Kenny’s, so again capable of making an A final as a Freshman in the sprint frees. Interestingly, in the inter-squad meet Harrison focused on Backstroke. That was odd, as his back personal bests aren’t exceptionally strong. Will be one to watch moving forward.

Laramie Sellers (Sr.)
Laramie was the team’s top breaststroker in ‘18/’19 but didn’t swim last year (hence the need for Bo Dyer to fill the role of breaststroke). This year Laramie returns, but it appears from practice he’s no longer swimming breast, which is interesting because based on his personal bests breast is by far his strongest stroke. Not really sure where he fits if he doesn’t do breast. His free sprints are pretty good, but with the influx of sprinters based on best times he’s not even in the team’s top 5.

Paxton Smathers (So.)
Paxton is one of the weaker swimmers on the team, capable of sneaking in some back end points illustrated by his 6 points at conference championships last year. Because he lacks a strong stroke he swims longer races where stamina and effort can impact results. At conference last year he swam in the 500 Free, 200 Free, and 200 Back he finished 16, 13, and 14.

Tyler Stephenson (Jr.)
Tyler is another swimmer that was on the team in ‘18/’19, and in fact was competing with Laramie for top breaststroker, but didn’t swim for the school in ‘19/’20. He’s back this season, and if he can get back into shape after missing a year and dealing with the Covid impacts to training, he’ll most likely be challenging for the top breast position again. It’s by far his best stroke.

Diego Torres (Fr.)
Diego is basically a “walk-on”. He is very small for a swimmer, built more like a gymnast, who was a high school swimmer only, not a year-round trainer. Currently it appears he’s limited to just freestyle and sprints, and given he’s stuck competing in the toughest events on the schedule and his times are below average he’ll struggle to score at conference. However, Diego is a very hard worker and a very positive person and is quite popular on the team. Always good to have good teammates.

Ross Valdez (Fr.)
The crown jewel of the big Freshman signing class, Ross is an extremely good swimmer who was ranked the 12th best swimmer in Georgia in 2020. Swimmers ranked around him (both above and below) signed with teams like Georgia Tech, Notre Dame, and Iowa, so Ross ending up at Berry was a huge coup. Another illustration of how good he is…in the meet last weekend (1/9), despite only being in the water for practice for 3 days, he broke the team record in the 1000 swim, AND HE WAS 24 SECONDS OFF HIS PERSONAL BEST. Ross is an excellent swimmer in all strokes, but he really thrives in distance and fly. Not sure where he’ll ultimately shake out. My guess for this year is he’ll do the 200 fly, 500 Free and 1000 free, but will also be on every A relay he can be on.

Mason Weaver (So.)
Mason appears to be just a breaststroker, as that is the only thing he swam at conference championships last year. He was good enough to steal a couple of back end points by getting 15th in the 200. Given the return of Stephenson and Sellers plus the addition of freshman McKinnon on his own team, I don’t see any way he can duplicate his 2 point return from last year.

Dylan White (Sr.)
This is last year’s team MVP, earning 49 points at conference championships. Dylan is the other senior I wanted Bear to swim with, as he’s pretty amazing. In ‘18/’19 he won the 100 back and finished second in the 200 back in conference. Last year he interestingly started swimming some mid-distance events and even managed to post some team records. At conference he swam the 500 and finished 3rd, the 100 back he was 4th, and the 400 IM he finished 2nd. Dylan is super versatile and it will be interesting to see what he swims this year. Interestingly, backstroke is the one area that appears to be weak with the recent additions. Maybe that’s enough of a reason to have Dylan go back to focusing on that stroke.

Bear Breeze (Fr.)
The final piece of the strong freshman class. If you’ve been reading along you know what kind of swimmer Bear is. His strength is in the grinding events, distance free, 200 free & fly and the 2 IMs. His sprint free is good enough to potentially be on the B relay at conference, his 200 free is borderline A relay ability. His fly is 5th fastest on the team with 2 seniors and Ross in front of him, and his 200 fly is 4th. Ultimately, I’m not sure what Bear will compete in long term. However, this year it looks like he’ll be in the grinder role swimming the 3 longest events on the docket – 500 and 1650 free, and 400 IM.

[Breeze]

Berry - Covid Update

So yesterday Bear's roommate Ross tested positive. Unfortunately, over the weekend the swim team had a party and contact tracing sent all but 4 guys home (Bear was one that got to stay). Today the team re-tested everyone and there were no new positive tests. However, the AD reported the entire team is being quarantined for 2 weeks and all competitions are cancelled. This screams of punishment for having a party not for potential Covid outbreak, especially when they want Bear to quarantine even though he - A. wasn't at the party and B. has antibodies and can't spread the virus right now. In addition, the AD just had the entire team come together on Tuesday for a dinner following the first swim meet, so not sure what the difference is in getting together for dinner and for getting together for a "party".

[JonInMiddleGA]

{facepalm}

I won't say much else because all I'd probably do is add to the frustration.

[Breeze]

Berry - Covid Update

The two week punishment ended up being more like 6 days...as the team was back in the water today. They also have a meet this weekend.

Good luck with that... Poor Bear will probably swim the 1000 with about 5 days of full practice in the last 3 weeks.

[Breeze]

Birmingham Southern Quad Meet @ Birmingham Crossplex - 1/23

Berry heads to this quad meet with 3 days of practice in the last 10. Berry will swim against Birmingham Southern, Milsaps, and West Florida (D1). This is actually a 2 day meet but Berry will only participate on Saturday. I don't know at this point which events will be contested on Saturday, so hard to say what Bear might be swimming. I expect this will be ugly for the Vikings.

[Breeze]

Originally Posted by Breeze

Birmingham Southern Quad Meet @ Birmingham Crossplex - 1/23

Berry heads to this quad meet with 3 days of practice in the last 10. Berry will swim against Birmingham Southern, Milsaps, and West Florida (D1). This is actually a 2 day meet but Berry will only participate on Saturday. I don't know at this point which events will be contested on Saturday, so hard to say what Bear might be swimming. I expect this will be ugly for the Vikings.

I've confirmed with Bear, he will be swimming the 1000 and the 400 IM. Welcome Back!!!

No idea about relays, but given the relays appear to be immediately before the 1000 and immediately after the 400 IM, I'm guessing he won't be on any.

[Breeze]

Birmingham Southern Quad Meet - RESULTS

As expected the results were ugly. No one on the team swam well and the longer the event, the worse the results. It's a bit sad, because the times that were winning events are dead in line with what the Berry swimmers would be doing if they were getting to practice regularly.

The one thing this meet illustrated clearly - Birmingham Southern either isn't having Covid issues (which I find hard to believe knowing the party culture of that team), or their protocols are much less stringent than the ones Berry is following. Given the results of this meet, I expect BSC to dominate the conference championship.

As for Bear, he swam 2 long events, and as I said results got worse the longer the race. It was so bad the distance coach even apologized to him after the meet. There is no point in posting his times, as I'm sure he has no desire to remember them long term.

[Breeze]

Berry vs. Centre @ Boles Natatorium - 1/30

Berry will be travelling to Danville, Kentucky tonight to compete against Centre College in the morning (1/30). Most of the team has returned to practice at this point, but the team has still only been in the water for around 10 days at this point, so I don't expect results to be much improved over last weeks times.

Bear draws the unenviable role of swimming the 1000 and 500 freestyles. He's currently very frustrated with his inability to "find his stroke". It's hardly surprising given the amount of time he's been out of the water, but in his shoes I'd be frustrated too. I'm hoping he's sees some improvement this time around and use it as a building block.

[thealmighty]

In the interest of not having to look through a bunch of posts to find out, when is the conference meet?

[Breeze]

Berry vs. Centre - RESULTS

Berry men and women both lost in a very close meet on Saturday. Bear managed to win his first ever college race, the 1000 free. It was significantly better than his swim the previous week, but no where near where he was swimming at the end of the season before Covid set in. In the 500 free he lead for 400 yards, only to watch a Centre swimmer blow by him in the last 100 to take the victory. This pissed Bear off, as he felt it was done to embarrass him. He said (and he has a point) that the Centre swimmer could have gone our much faster and simple won the race rather than choosing to show him up (and based on the other swimmers past times, Bear is probably correct). The funny thing is this other swimmers best times aren't nearly as good as Bears, who now has an additional motivation to get in shape. His plan now is to work hard to get where he needs to so he can beat this guy when it counts at conference championships. The problem is, he's running out of time.

Bear also swam Fly on the B medley relay, and he swam on the A free relay that was out-touched by .05 seconds.

[Breeze]

Originally Posted by thealmighty

In the interest of not having to look through a bunch of posts to find out, when is the conference meet?

TA, hey, you beat me to it...

Southern Athletic Association Conference Championships @ Birmingham Crossplex - Feb 17 - 20

so basically Bear has less than 2 weeks to get in as good a shape as he can because at least a few of those days are going to be taper. Given how little training the team has had, I have no idea how the coach is going to try and work the taper. If he does a typical taper he runs the risk of swimmers not being in shape enough to stay strong through the entire race, but if he tapers too little with hard days leading into the meet, he runs the risk of players not recovering enough to swim well. It will be interesting.

[Breeze]

Bear - General Update

I don't think I've mentioned this yet (though I had intended to), but Bear reported to us, shortly before the Centre meet, that he was starting to have some problems with his lats (which is the injury that set him back towards the end of his high school career). It's not terribly surprising that this is happening, because the injury at the time was diagnosed as a repetitive over-working injury and the doctor told Bear that it typically occurs from ramping up too fast. Given the stop and start nature of this season and ultimately the extremely compressed window to get in shape prior to the conference championships it's not surprising that the coach is trying to ramp them up quickly. To combat this, Bear was able to use the trainer and therapists. He recently went in for a massage where they also did cupping and something he's never had before he said was scraping. He said his lats feel much looser following the treatment. The question now is will it last once he starts swimming again and will it hold until after the conference meet.

[Breeze]

Conference Championship Update

The hits keep coming for this season. Due to the winter storm the meet has been rescheduled for:

Southern Athletic Association Conference Championships @ Birmingham Crossplex - 2/19 - 2/22

Given the start/stop nature of the season I probably should have expected something like this. I hope that the extra days don't adversely impact Bear's (and the team's in general) taper.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Breeze

Given the start/stop nature of the season I probably should have expected something like this. I hope that the extra days don't adversely impact Bear's (and the team's in general) taper.

In theory though that should at least affect all teams equally ... right?

[Breeze]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

In theory though that should at least affect all teams equally ... right?

yes and no...typically the answer would be yes, and to a certain extent this year as well because the reschedule impacts all the teams the same. However, teams that haven't been as impacted by covid during the season and have been able to get closer to peak shape will handle the delay better than teams that are trying to peak at the right time because they ramped up harder over a shorter timeframe. Basically, in Berry's case the window to get the taper right because of the way training was so sporadic is small.

It probably won't matter because Birmingham Southern is the best team in conference and they appear to have had the least impact from Covid, so I expect them to dominate the meet this weekend, and I did before the delay occurred, actually.

[Breeze]

Conference Championship Update

Due to the weather especially for the schools in the northwestern part of the conference (Rhodes, Centre, and Hendrix), the SSA has again rescheduled the championship meet. This time the change is minor. Rather than have teams swim two relays on Friday night to kick off the meet, they will reshuffle the schedule to work those events into the remaining 3 days, allowing an extra day for roads to clear so travel will be safer.

Southern Athletic Association Conference Championships @ Birmingham Crossplex - 2/20 - 2/22

[Breeze]

Southern Athletic Association Conference Championships - PREVIEW

Previewing this meet is going to be next to impossible - given the lack of training the Berry team has had makes predictions tough, but adding in the complexity of the impact Covid has or hasn't had on the other teams is what makes this effort mostly futile.

The order of events has been shuffled due to the subtraction of opening night and the 200 Free Relay will now be swum Saturday at the end of the morning session, and the 800 Free Relay will be swum Sunday at the end of the night session. Also the 1650 has been replaced with the 1000, which is disappointing for Bear because he would prefer to do mile swim.

*Note 1: The seeds listed below are subject to change because the final scratches have not yet been announced, and coaches over enter swimmers so they don't show their hand regarding the events the best swimmers will compete in.

*Note 2: Most seed times are likely impacted by the training restrictions caused by Covid.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bear

500 Yard Freestyle (5:19.65) : Seeded 16 - Bear comes into this event with seeded 16th, but the seed time is extremely slow for him. Last year in high school after breaking his foot and missing most of the season he was able to come back at the county championships and swim sub 5 minutes in this event and take 3rd overall. Given how the season has gone I don't know if he can get under 5 this time, but if he can, he'll have a chance to get into the top 8 and make the A final. The top time in the event is 4:42.51 - Bear's personal best in this event is 4:41.77, and his recent times post shoulder/lat issues were around 4:50s. Given his abilities in a normal year he would be a threat to place high here, I just hope he has a respectable showing - something in the A final or close to the A final would be pretty good under the circumstances.

400 Yard IM (4:48.38) : Seeded 11 - This one is tough to project because there are 22 people entered into this event and 9 come in with a No Time seeding. This year with so few meets available to establish a time in this event these are likely strong swimmers that just never got into this event. Bear's seed time is again an illustration of his in ability to train. The fastest time in this event is 4:19.39, Bear's personal best is 4:11.59, and his most recent times following his rehab are around 4:20. This year he's had very little opportunity to swim all 4 strokes, and I'm sure his breast and back will be sloppy. But I'd expect with adrenalin flowing he should outswim his seed time. Again, I'd love to see him get into a A final, but the key to that will probably be how strong most of the NT swimmers are.

1000 Yard Freestyle (10:52.37) : Seeded 10 - As I mentioned Bear is a bit disappointed this one isn't going to be the 1650. I know he did a few "all outs" in practice working on improving his splits for the mile, and he seemed to be relatively pleased with his progress. In this event the top time is 10:05.69, Bear's personal best is a 9:41.74. This isn't an event he swims often, as many meets don't offer this race and typically if a distance free is going to be on the docket it's the 1650 not the 1000, however, even following his rehab he's was able to get below 10 minutes. If he was able to get his training splits to an acceptable level he might be able to drop a bunch of time off his seed time, just not sure if it will be enough to get in the top 8, where normally I would fell really good about his ability to be in that spot.

200 Yard Butterfly (NT) : Seeded 18 - This is the most likely scratch out of the events Bear is entered in. First, Bear has been under the assumption he would be swimming the 500, 1000, and 400 IM. Second, he really hasn't done a 200 fly in a long time, so long I can't remember when it was, which makes him competing in this unlikely. Also the top 2 seeds in the event are Berry teammates - Ross Valdez and Noah Brand - and Bear's not beat those guys even if he was training for that event.

Relays - Unlike the ODACs when Brett competed the SAA has teams field two relays. Each team's A relay swims in the A final and each team's B relay swims in B final (and can score no higher than 9th in the event regardless of how good the time is or how many teams swam in the A heat). Each swimmer is allowed to compete in 7 events, with no more than 3 being individual. Bear is currently under the impression he'll be swimming in 4 B relays. My guess is he'll be in the 800 Free for sure, then I'm not so sure what else he'll swim. The problem is the team is very strong in sprint free and sprint fly, which makes it difficult to determine how the coach will split up the swims. Given that Bear is likely 3rd on the depth chart in sprint fly and around 8th in sprint free - it's hard to predict where he will fall when the assignments take place.

[Breeze]

Southern Athletic Association Conference Championships - Day 1 - PRELIM RESULTS

Bear

500 Yard Free (5:19.65) : Seeded 16 - Given the start/stop nature of the season, combined with Bear's missed time due to having to quarantine multiple times, I was very concerned with how this might play out. He had indicated to me he was feeling good in practice and his split times were about where he wanted them, but I just wasn't sure - A. How that would hold up under championship competition and B. How he would hold up given the wear and tear of a 3 day meet.

In the first heat Bear's roommate Ross won with 4:41.60 - right on Bear's personal best time. Bear was in the second heat, and he managed to post a 4:47.16, which was good for second in his heat and 3rd overall with 1 heat to go. This was a good time for Bear, his second best ever and under less that ideal circumstances. At this point I felt real good about the fact he was almost certainly going to be in the A final. In the 3rd heat he was topped by teammate Dylan White and Birmingham stud swimmer Charlie Fountain, so he entered the finals in 5th.

Bear reached out following the morning session to say he felt really good, and that he held back a bit and expected to go faster at finals. It was really good to hear him that excited, it's been a while since he had that level of passion about his swimming.

[Breeze]

Southern Athletic Association Conference Championships - Day 1 - FINALS RESULTS

Bear

500 Yard Free (4:47.16) : Seeded 5th - Bear opened with a 53.17, only .04 off his opening 100 from the morning, and that was the only split of the 5 that was slower. He dropped over a half a second in the second split, .1 in the 3rd, around .8 in the 4th, and 1.28 seconds in the last 100 to post a finals time of 4:44.58. Another great swim, again taking the spot of his second fastest time ever in this event. Unfortunately, despite his huge improvement, he was passed in the last 100 by a swimmer who closed with a 56.24 split, so Bear settled for 6th place. Ross finished 3rd and Dylan took 4th.

This really pumped me up about what his meet might look like. I couldn't wait until day 2.

[Breeze]

Southern Athletic Association Conference Championships - Day 1 - Coach's Summary

Below is the email sent from the coach to the swimmer's families.


Good Evening Everyone,

Well Session one is in the record books, and what a session it was for the Vikings. The morning prelim session wrapped up with the Women taking third in the 200 Freestyle Relay; Hannah Smith, Isabella Decker, Taryn Shanahan and Brooke Boyd teamed up to go top three at 1:38.97. Their swim was followed by the Men; Noah Brand; 21.23, Hunter Kenny; 21.00, Harrison McNeil; 21.40 and Michael Bemis; 20.44, coming together to win the event as our first 2021 Conference Champions at 1:24.07. The Evening Finals session started with Brooke Boyd placing 2nd in the 500 Freestyle on the Women’s side and Ross Valdez, Dylan White and Bear Breeze going 3, 4, 6 clocking 4:36.58, 4:39.31 and 4:44.59 respectively. Next up in the 200 IM Grace Pleasant turned in a 2:13.27 for 3rd place and Bo Dyar swam to a 7th place going 1:58.29. Hannah Smith and Isabella Decker were next to swim in the 50 Freestyle grabbing 2nd; 24.34 and 5th;24.62. In the Men’s 50 Free it was a 1 , 2 finish by Michael Bemis, defending conference Champion, and Noah Brand racing to a near tie touching at 21.14 and 21.16 respectively with teammate Hunter Kenny finishing 7th at 21.61. The Women’s 400 Medley relay finish strong at 4th place going 4:04.34 while the Men turned in a never accomplished feat of breaking two records within one race…Dylan White lead off the event with a 100 Backstroke time of 49.82; a new School Record, which was followed up by equally strong swims by Tyler Stephenson; 100 Breaststroke, 58.66, Ross Valdez; 100 Butterfly, 50.77 and finished off by Michael Bemis;100 Freestyle, 45:67 for a second place finish at 3;24.92 and another school record.

All in all a great start to the 2021 Championships. Current team scores are…

WOMEN                                                  MEN
1.	BSC        300                                 Berry       235
2.	Centre   240                                   BSC         229
3.	Rhodes  206                                    Centre      177
4.	Berry      160                                 Rhodes      165
5.	Hendrix  118                                   Hendrix     91
6.	Millsaps    52                                 Millsaps    53
7.	Sewanee   20                                   Sewanee     11

[JonInMiddleGA]

I MAY have cheated just a little bit yesterday and went looking around for results.

Conference site only loaded a blank page for me but I may have found at least SOME results

[Breeze]

Southern Athletic Association Conference Championships - Day 2 - PRELIM RESULTS

Bear

400 Yard IM (4:48.38) : Seeded 11 After Bear's strong swim in the 500 the day before I had high hopes and 1 serious concern. The concern was - given the fact he had about a month to prepare, a majority of that time was clearly spent getting in shape and fine tuning the freestyle, which means - how much time did he actually get to work on all the other strokes, which he has to swim in this race??? I felt with him seeded 11th, that he'd do fine and likely get into an A final as long as he could post a decent improvement over his seed time (not even necessarily needing to come close to his personal best time of 4:11). I felt anything around 4:25 would get him in the A final.

The race started and Bear's fly looked exceptional. So good it made me wonder if he might have been better off in the 200 fly. He finished that leg in 56.04. While that time isn't close to his personal best of 53.3, it is still the second fastest 100 fly he's ever swum. Then came the 2 strokes we expected him to struggle in. In the back he went a 1:05.06, in the breast he managed a 1:16.34, and he closed with a 1:01.54 in the free. His overall time was 4:18.98, a nice swim and good enough to finish 7th and make the A final. The truth of the matter was my projection of 4:25 being good enough to make A finals was way off...the 8th place seed swam a 4:19...so he needed everything he did to get to the championship swim in the evening session.

[rjolley]

Way to go Bear!

[Breeze]

Southern Athletic Association Conference Championships - Day 2 - FINALS RESULTS

Bear

400 Yard IM (4:18.98) : Seeded 7 - Coming into finals Bear there were 3 guys he absolutely wasn't going to compete with. There times were likely to be way faster than his personal best. There were another 2 that it would take a personal best swim to compete with...so that left Bear working against the 6th and 8th seeded swimmers.

Looking at Bear's splits I felt that was some room for improvement, but I didn't expect much improvement in the back or breast legs. Just knowing his limited time swimming those strokes I just couldn't see him all of sudden cleaning up his form. Which would mean any improvement in those strokes would likely have come from additional effort, which would risk a fallout later in the race when he ran out of gas. However, Bear's 1:01 close was well below the closing freestyle splits he's posted in the past when he was feeling good. I expected he might be able to at least post a 59 low and drop a couple of seconds on that split alone.

The race started with Bear posted a 56.30. It was such a strong split he was in 3rd place and only .2 away from the leaders who tied on their split with a 56.10. Unfortunately, the back and breast are Bear's weakness and he fell off their pace with his 1:06.01 back was significantly slower (almost a full second) than the morning and made 2 straight slits that weren't as fast as the morning swim. However, his breaststroke looked much better and quicker and his split of 1:15.14, a 1.2 second improvement from the morning shows the assessment was right. At this point his split at the 300 mark is 3:17.45, his split at the same point in the morning was 3:17.44. So if he was going to improve, it was all going to come down to the Freestyle, which is what I was expecting all along, only I thought a 59 low would be a good improvement and he might go a bit faster, I didn't expect the 57.11 he actually posted. He finished in a time of 4:14.56, the second fastest time he's ever posted in this race. His almost 4.5 second improvement allowed him to move up to 6th place.

800 Free Relay - A Team - Bear was pegged to swim on the A relay in the 800 free. He teamed with his roommate Ross, Dylan White, and Noah Brand. Dylan led off the race and posted a team record time for the 200 Free - 1:40.95, and gave the team the lead after the opening leg.

Noah went second and his 1:42.47 held the lead, 4 seconds over Birmingham Southern (BSC) and 6 seconds over Rhodes.

Bear went 3rd, and he posted a 1:45.68, which is a personal best time by .3, but doesn't count because of the rolling start. Bear's time while good for him, saw the lead slip to 2 seconds over BSC and 4 over Rhodes.

Ross dove in with the job of trying to hang on against some stout competition. At the end of the first 50, Berry was up 1.46 seconds on BSC, and 3.06 seconds over Rhodes. The second fifty saw the lead slip to 1.12 over BSC and 2.05 over Rhodes. In the 3rd leg of Ross' swim, things started to change - the lead over BSC grew to 1.48, which was an indication the swimmer had gone out to fast to close the deficit and was likely going to back up. The question was - did Ross go out super hard to hold onto the lead and was he going to suffer the same fate. The Rhodes swimmer continued to close as he was only .74 behind - a margin so small as to make it difficult to determine who's actually leading the race when camera angle is considered. Ross managed to swim the last 50 in a remarkable 26.4, his second fastest split of the 200 and right when he needed to step up. The Rhodes swimmer was faster though, posting a 26.25 - only that .15 difference wasn't enough and Ross got to the wall first for the gold medal and the conference championship! The team finished in 6:51.86, only .2 off the team record.

If you were wondering BSC closed in 27.11 and fell off the pace.

[Breeze]

Southern Athletic Association Conference Championships - Day 2 - Coach's Summary

Good Evening Everyone,

Sorry for being so late but tonight is a long session wit the 800 Free Relay, but WOW What another Great session

Brooke Boyd got us started with a 4th place finish in the 400 IM swimming to a 4:38.44, Taylor Blaylock and Andie Hadaway swam the B final placing 10th and 13th. Bear Breeze was the lone A finalist for the men taking 6th at 4:14.56 and Riley Croker stepped up to finish 14th at 4:29.76. Women’s 100 Butterfly produce our first conference Champion for the session, Hannah Smith swam a 57.78 to win the event… followed by Cali Filmer and Lexie Crosby finishing 9th and 14th. Not to be outdone Noah Brand stepped up to win the Men’s 100 Butterfly at 48.87; Also an NCAA National B cut, and Alex Bartik scored a 9th place at 52.98. The women’s 200 Free brought us our first tie with Taryn Shanahan and Berkeley Hawks at 2:03.07 with Julia Olive just behind at 2:04.58. Ross Valdez, Michael Bemis and Harrison McNeil joined together to finish 3rd; 1:43.42, 4th; 1:43.59, and 8th; 1:46.05… Hunter Kenny 9th, Paxton Smathers 11th, and Diego Torres, 16th rounded out the event for the Vikings. The Women’s 100 Breaststroke put us back on top of the podium when Viola Hasko and Grace Pleasant teamed up to go 1, 2. Viola’s winning time was 1:06.76, with Grace just a touch away at 1:06.80. Tyler Stephenson placed 4th; 59.76 and Ryan MacKinnon 5th; 1:00.02 with Laramie Sellers grabbing 11th at 1:02.71. Emma O’Heron, Haley Pietras and Lexie Crosby filled the B final placing 9th, 13th and 16th respectively. Dylan White and Bo Dyar got busy in the Men’s 100 Back, Dylan took the conference Champion slot winning the event at 50.33 while Bo backed him up in 5th place at 52.33. The 800 Free Relay saw the Women take 4th; 8:01.71 in the A final and 12th in the B. The Men then came in as Conference Champions in the A final; 6:51.86 and 10th in the B. All together an exceptional night winding up with the Men’s team in 2nd place; just 35 points out of first and 79 points ahead of third. The Women are sitting in 4th; 88 points out of third and 146 ahead of fifth… Looking for another Great day Tomorrow. GO VIKINGS !!!!

[Breeze]

Southern Athletic Association Conference Championships - Day 3 - PRELIM RESULTS

Bear

On Sunday night we heard from Bear and he was feeling good and confident heading into the 1000 free. In fact, he was so confident he mentioned that he thought he could medal, which was an interesting statement when the top 2 swimmers from the 500 were both still competing in the 1000 and they are extremely strong. However, Bear felt he could take 3rd for sure.

After the final scratches (mentioned above in the previews), Bear moved from 10th seed to 8th seed. A huge turn of events that was going to allow him to go head to head with the top swimmers in the evening finals session, rather than posting a time in the morning with little to no competition and hoping it was good enough to stand up.

As it turns out the top swimmer from the morning did a nice job, he dropped around 10 seconds, won the heat by 4 seconds and finished in a time of 10:29. That was pretty good, but if Bear was going medal - that swim was not going to be a factor. Bear was going to have the beat that time by quite a lot. One item of note from the morning swim that was a very positive sign in my opinion was when Berry swimmer Riley Crocker dropped almost 41 seconds from his seed time. Given they train together I thought this boded well for Bear's chances.

[Breeze]

Southern Athletic Association Conference Championships - Day 3 - FINALS RESULTS

Bear

1000 Yard Freestyle (10:52.37) : Seeded 8 - The 1000 Free opened the evening session so Bear's effort to medal wasn't going to take long. In order to get 3rd place, Bear was going to have to beat 5 people with faster seed times. At the turn for the 100, Bear was in 3rd place, about a second behind the two leaders and about an eye blink ahead of 4th place. The remaining 4 swimmers were all ~3.5 seconds or more behind Bear. The second 100 Bear maintained his spot in 3rd place, about 3 seconds behind the leader and about 1.5 seconds up on 4th place. The remaining 4 were already at least 5 seconds behind Bear. By the 3rd hundred Bear was now 4 seconds back, but hanging tough with the leaders posting splits under 30 seconds per 50. The 4th place swimmer was back to around 2.5 seconds behind. The remaining 4 swimmers had fully disconnected from the pack and were trailing 8 or more seconds behind Bear. It was definitely looking like they were out of it and the race for 3rd would be between Bear and the guy who was only a couple of seconds back. At the 400 mark Bear was still cruising and he had opened his lead for 3rd to almost 4 seconds, and the spread remained about the same at the half way point. At the 600 yard turn Bear's lead had grown to 5.5 seconds, and it looked like Bear was going to start slowly stretching his lead. At the 700 yard mark Bear's lead was 7 seconds and it was just a matter of finishing the race. Bear continued to turn sub 30 second splits until he went 30.16 between 850 and 900 yards. However, he rebounded quickly to close out the race with a final 100 split of 58.55.

In all Bear finished 3rd in conference with a team record time of 9:47.43. This is also his second fastest time in the 1000, and the best he's posted in several years. It was also an awesome way to finish his first conference championship meet. He walked away with a ton of confidence about what he can accomplish moving forward, and he's already excited about next season.

[Breeze]

Southern Athletic Association Conference Championships - Day 3 - Berry Website Summary


Birmingham, Ala. – The Berry College swimming and diving teams wrapped up competition at the Southern Athletic Association (SAA) championships on Monday, claiming second on the men's side and fourth on the women's. Paul Flinchbaugh was named the SAA Men's Coach of the Year.

Dylan White had a standout performance on Monday, claiming the gold in the 200 back and posting a new school record time of 1:49.88. Freshman Bear Breeze finished third in the 1000 and also posted a new school record time of 9:47.43.

On the women's side, Brooke Boyd won first in the 1000 with a new school record time of 10:23.01.

Eight Vikings seniors were also recognized and awarded for their incredible career with Berry swim and dive. The eight included:

Taylor Blaylock
Berkeley Hawks
Brooke Boyd
Cali Fillmer
Bo Dyar
Dylan White
Laramie Sellers
Michael Bemis

[JonInMiddleGA]

{grin} I knew about the school record race, was just waiting to hear you detail it

Congrats to Bear, and thank to you for allowing us once again to be a tiny part of it from a distance.

[JAG]

Wow, great result. Congrats to Bear and the team. Know it’s been a frustrating year, so especially glad he could get some enjoyment here.

[Breeze]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

{grin} I knew about the school record race, was just waiting to hear you detail it

Congrats to Bear, and thank to you for allowing us once again to be a tiny part of it from a distance.

Originally Posted by JAG

Wow, great result. Congrats to Bear and the team. Know it’s been a frustrating year, so especially glad he could get some enjoyment here.

Thanks guys, it was pretty awesome under the circumstances. Now I'm praying that I'll get to go watch in person next year.

[Breeze]

Southern Athletic Association Conference Championships - Post Meet Info

It was a great meet for the Berry Men, as they improved their point totals from 572 (3rd place) in 2020 to 737 (2nd place) this year.

Here is how the points broke down for the men:

PL      Name           gold    slvr    brz     pts     score
1	Dylan white	2	–	–	55	639.7	
2	Noah Brand	1	2	–	54	603.3	
3	Michael Bemis	1	–	1	51	623.0	
4	Ross Valdez	–	–	2	44	637.2	
5	Bear Breeze	–	–	1	42	622.6	
6	Thomas Dyar	–	–	–	39	563.6	
7	Hunter Kenny	–	–	–	33	563.8	
8	Ryan Mackinnon	–	–	–	33	549.2	
9	Harrison McNeil	–	–	–	30	548.4	
10	Ty Stephenson	–	–	–	27	542.0	
11	Alex Bartik	–	–	–	23	533.0	
12	Fuentes-Bonilla	–	–	–	12	–*	
13	Laramie Sellers	–	–	–	11	485.8	
14	Riley Croker	–	–	–	10	507.3	
15	P Smathers	–	–	–	9	529.3	
16	Mason Weaver	–	–	–	3	334.8	
17	Diego Torres	–	–	–	1	375.2	

* Diver only

A quick explanation of what your are looking at above. The Place column is the swimmers in order of points scored. The Gold, Silver, Bronze columns are the number of medals won by swimmer. Points is the number of points for the team the swimmer earned and the score column is a points system designed to indicate how well the swimmer performed in their event, based on times posted not position earned, the higher the number the better.

Some interesting things to note:

- Berry losing Bemis, White, Dyar and Sellers amounts to a staggering 156 points of their team total - that's going to be difficult to replace.

- Berry only competed with 17 rather than the max of 18. Senior Cole Beddingfield (who earned 40 points in 2020) quit the team after winter training during the tumultuous period when the team was being suspended for 2 weeks for having a party. His addition, while not nearly enough to catch BSC, certainly would have made the score much closer.

- The 5 recruited Freshman from 2020 all managed to score over 30 points: Valdez (44), Breeze (42), Kenny (33), MacKinnion (33), McNeil (30). That's a strong class for Berry to build on.


I'll provide an overview of the entire meet later.

[rjolley]

Thanks for the updates, Breeze. I've enjoyed following along with the swimming careers of the Breeze family.

[thealmighty]

Wow, what a great result given all the stops and starts the team had.


Is there any video on the web we could find?

[Breeze]

Originally Posted by thealmighty

Wow, what a great result given all the stops and starts the team had.


Is there any video on the web we could find?

Hey TA,

If you go to YouTube and search under saa swimming championship 2021 you'll get a whole list of videos (of course a bunch aren't labelled correctly. The ones at the top seem to be the real races).

This link is the session with Bear's 1000. Remember the race is 10 minutes long.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ckRvMXfhPY&t=2952s - The session opens with the 1000 - Women first then Men

This is the session with the 500 Free
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LK48lfATIAw - The session opens with the 500, Bear will be in the 4th heat (2 women's heats followed by 1 men's heat before Bear)

This is the session with the 400 IM and the 800 Free Relay.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02U-7aTbVw0 - The session starts with the 400 IM, like the 500 Free Bear will be the 4th heat. The 800 Free is the last race on the session.

[Breeze]

Southern Athletic Association Conference Championships - Post Meet Info

Earlier I posted the results for the Berry men. Below is the same information for the entire meet. As you can see Bear was the 18th highest point earning swimmer in the meet, but the interesting thing for me was that his score was much higher than that. When looking at his time related scores Bear is 8th overall, and that's under less than ideal circumstances.

PL      name            team   gold    slv     brz      pts     score
1	L. Fountain	BSC	3	–	–	60	694.3	
2	A. Henderson	BSC	2	1	–	57	619.7	
3	Evan Ziolkowski	Rhodes 	2	–	1	56	643.8	
4	Dylan white	Berry	2	–	–	55	639.7	
5	Chase Bolding	BSC	1	2	–	54	645.5	
6	Noah Brand	Berry	1	2	–	54	603.3	
7	Arthur Bishop	Rhodes	1	1	1	53	608.8	
8	Michael Bemis	Berry	1	–	1	51	623.0	
9	Joseph Swing	BSC	–	3	–	51	683.3	
10	Chris Rubin	BSC	–	1	2	49	596.8	
11	Jackson DeFore	BSC	–	1	–	47	593.5	
12	James Crabbe	BSC	–	–	2	46	587.7	
13	Maxwell Shoyat	Centre	–	–	–	45	599.7	
14	Bryan Killian	Centre	–	1	1	44	571.9	
15	Ross Valdez	Berry	–	–	2	44	637.2	
16	Sean Gilpatrick	Centre	–	–	1	44	585.8	
17	P. Higgerson	Hndrx	–	–	1	43	559.6	
18	Bear Breeze	Berry	–	–	1	42	622.6	
19	Cameron Coffey	BSC	–	–	–	42	543.4	
20	John Beuerlein	Rhodes	2	–	–	40	–	

[Breeze]

Southern Athletic Association Conference Championships

From the SAA Conference website:

SAA releases All-SAA Men's Swimming and Diving awards
2/26/2021 11:00:00 AM


ATLANTA (Feb. 26, 2021) - The Southern Athletic Association (SAA) has released its 2021 Men's Swimming and Diving All-SAA awards, Friday.

Student-athletes earned their awards at the recent 2021 SAA Men's Swimming and Diving Championship in Birmingham, Alabama.

Any student-athlete that earned a first-place finish was named to the All-SAA First-Team. Any student-athlete who earned a second-place finish at the championship earned a spot on the All-SAA Second-Team while a third-place finish garnered an All-SAA Honorable Mention selection.

SAA Men’s Swimmer of the Year - Charlie Fountain - BSC

SAA Men’s Newcomer of the Year - Arthur Bishop - Rhodes

SAA Diver of the Year - John Beuerlein - Rhodes

Men’s Coach of the Year - Paul Flinchbaugh - Berry

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

First Team

Dylan White - Berry

Noah Brand - Berry

Bear Breeze - Berry

Ross Valdez - Berry

Michael Bemis - Berry

Kenny Hunter - Berry

Harrison McNeil - Berry

Chris Rubin - BSC

Hayden Henderson - BSC

Chase Bolding - BSC

Jackson Defore - BSC

Charlie Fountain - BSC

John Beuerlein - Rhodes

Arthur Bishop - Rhodes

Evan Ziolkowsk - Rhodes

Arrington Moses - Rhodes

Driscoll Crabbe - Rhodes

Harrison Rozman - Rhodes
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Second Team

Tyler Sephenson - Berry

Joe Swing - BSC

Sam Arnold - BSC

Sean Gilpatrick - Centre

Kaden Gervacio - Centre

Bryan Killian - Centre

Roland Chang - Rhodes
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Third Team

Carson Maggio - BSC

Alex Gauldin - BSC

Cameron Coffey - BSC

Max Shoyat - Centre

Jimmy Kelley - Centre

Garrison Herfel - Centre

Paxton Higgerson - Hendrix

Oli Steven-Assheuer - Hendrix

Maximiliaan Van Cauwelaert - Rhodes

[rjolley]

First team All-SAA! Congrats Bear!

Breeze, how are Brett and Bailey doing? How have they been navigating the restrictions of the pandemic?

[thealmighty]

Originally Posted by Breeze

Hey TA,

If you go to YouTube and search under saa swimming championship 2021 you'll get a whole list of videos (of course a bunch aren't labelled correctly. The ones at the top seem to be the real races).

This link is the session with Bear's 1000. Remember the race is 10 minutes long.
SAA Swimming Championship 2021 - YouTube - The session opens with the 1000 - Women first then Men

This is the session with the 500 Free
SAA Swimming Championship 2021 - YouTube - The session opens with the 500, Bear will be in the 4th heat (2 women's heats followed by 1 men's heat before Bear)

This is the session with the 400 IM and the 800 Free Relay.
SAA Swimming Championship 2021 - YouTube - The session starts with the 400 IM, like the 500 Free Bear will be the 4th heat. The 800 Free is the last race on the session.

TYVM. Just what i was wanting.

[thealmighty]

Dola...


Any word on the seniors BSC will be losing?