Good evening Bluefins,

Well done!

Both the boys & girls defeated Poconos last week. Over-all, the boys are 3-1, 2nd place in the Madison Division; the girls are 3-1, tied for 1st in the Madison Division. Attached are this meet's improvements, postseason qualifiers, and full results. I'm sending another email soon with a full report of all qualifiers to CHMC and Districts so far this year, and the top times report too.

Nazareth/Easton @ Poconos - Meet Highlights

Team Spirit: For consistent and enthusiastic cheering.

• Evangeline Lau, Emma Pellegrino, Amit Bheemannagari, Damian Ciaccia

Sportsmanship: For demonstrating honor, fairness, and appreciation towards competitors. This could be from shaking hands after a race, to conversations overhead by coaches between competitors, to any other observed actions that may fall into this category.

• Kayden Cullen, Leo Alfaro, Callie Naab, Paige Nungester

Excellence:

• Itzi Flores Ceja: This is Itzi's first year swimming and at the start of the season she could not really do the butterfly or breaststroke, at least not legally. She never did any turns either, let alone IM transition turns, in a race before too. Plus, she only swam a 100 just once and that was freestyle. Not to mention, she never did a 50 Fly or 50 Breast successfully in a meet either. AND YET...., at this meet, for the first time, she swam a 100 IM, completed each stroke legally, and completed all of her IM turns legally too. I don't know what she was feeling inside, but she never showed her stress, did not try to get out of it, did not fret or cry to the coaches, she didn't even question why she was swimming it. She just took some pointers and reminders with a nod, and she was off to the race. Of course, this comes from all her hard work, paying attention in practice, and applying the skills we are teaching, but it's more than that..., it's grit. For demonstrating grit & grace while under the stress of doing multiple new skills in one race, Itzi earned an excellence award this meet. Keep up the good work, Itzi.

• Tierney Henry: Tierney did her best relay start dive all season so far in the 200 Free Relay. It was well timed, smooth, fast, with a very good entry angle into the water. Well done, Tierney.

• Dominic Pellegrino: Dominic has been working on his breastroke turn in practice, focusing on driving his knees up to the wall first, spinning more in a tight ball, and driving his top hand to his head, into a streamline and breakout. His hard work paid off, as his turn in his 50 breast was much improved. The result is a personal best and CHMC qualifying time. Good job, Dominic.

• Santiago Roman: Three swims, two wins (one exhibition), three personal bests, three qualifying times..., all in a day's work for Santiago. We can't ask for more than that :). Well done!

New Historical Top 10

NEYS @ PFY, PITT Christmas Meet, & EMAC Winter Invitational

• Maggie Rizzardi - 500 Free, 100 IM, 400 IM, 200 Free, 200 Fly
• Ian Barrey - 500 Free, 100 Back, 50 Free, 200 Fly
• Nick Berger - 100 Back
• Mia Uliana - 100 Back, 500 Free
• Ava Uliana - 100 IM
• Lena Blazure - 100 Back
• Lena Watts - 100 Breast, 100 Fly
• Isis Watts - 1000 Free
• Jake Brunetti - 200 IM
• Kaine Vargo - 100 IM
• Katherine Torrealba Rodriguez - 400 IM
• Grady Schroeck - 400 IM, 200 Fly
• Zac Finn - 400 IM, 200 Fly

Team Record - Lena Watts: 13/14 Girls 100 IM - Congratulations Lena! 

Special shout out to Maika Alcoba too. Maika stayed late to pace Lena by swimming freestyle and help push her to the team record. 

Honorable mention and a huge thank you to those who volunteered to stay late after the meet. Normally, we all wait together and cheer until our whole team is done, even for the exhibitions at the end of the meet. That is our way and that's our team culture. However, we made an exception for this meet because of the manner in which Poconos ran the exhibitions. Nothing necessarily wrong with it, just inefficient and time exhaustive. However, we should still give a shout out to those that waited on their own to cheer, clean-up, and/or time. Hopefully, I didn't miss anyone. :)

• Alexa Mance
• Jasnika & Lithika Akidi
• Elliot Laclair
• Ceci Tarriff
• Patrick Leach
• Henry Hartman
• Chase Stahl
• Ian Barrey
• Austin & Ariel Rangel
• Matti Johnson
• Maika Alcoba

The following achieved new CHMC QT times at the Poconos dual meet and thus the corresponding brag tags for the 100 IM, not reflected on the report.

• Emma Pellegrino - 1:20.00
• Ali Unliana - 1:23.36
• Santiago Roman - 1:19.57
• Krithik Bheemannagari - 1:30.59

Results, improvement, & QT reports are attached too.

See you on deck,

Coach Drake