Hello everyone,

Thank you all so much for all the work you put into making our home meet successful! This was the best meet I've been to this year and not because I'm biased! Concessions were amazing; the refreshments in the coaches room were perfect and provided coaches/officials a quite place to meet (this doesn't happen at all meets); timers did an excellent job fulfilling their crucial role; staging of swimmers was spot on - every heat; set-up and take-down went smoothly; the facility temperature was probably the best ever; the raffle baskets were beautiful and we made a good sum of money on raffle tickets; and most of all, I saw a lot of excited smiling kids enjoying themselves with their friends and family! You all made this event and I'm so thankful for all the time you donated to make it run so smoothly! I want to give a special thanks to our board members who put in countless hours throughout the year to organize meets and team functions. Please say thank you to them when we get a chance. Also thank Mary Ponasik who did an amazing job putting all the events together in the computer, set up the timing system and made sure the meet ran smoothly on the timing side. It's not often you'll attend a morning session that's scheduled to end at 11:53 and ends at that time exactly. We also  finished the afternoon session 10 minutes ahead of schedule. In addition to this, she was also spot on with the air temperature. It's tough to get the pool temperatures and ambient air temps correct and from the feedback I got from other teams, this was the best they've experienced!

So, you all did a great job, but you kids were the true stars! We had 35 of our 43 team members swim in the meet. I had such a great time cheering and coaching them through their events. Thank you for giving me that opportunity! I was so pleased with the sportsmanship our athletes showed by cheering each other on and congratulating not just each other, but also the competition from other teams.

From a performance standpoint, our kids took top three in 37 out of 107 swims against the strongest teams in the conference. About 40% of our swims ended with a best time, which is pretty neat considering many of them are tired from the hard mid-season training. There's no way for me to capture all of the highlights from the meet, but I do want to mention a few that stood out.

1) Sawyer Behm, Zander Reetz and Molly Neufeldt achieved best times in 4/4 events

2) Sawyer Behm dropped over 9 seconds in his 50 fly from the first time he swam it this season and continued his streak of making every meet this season

3) Elizabeth Greif had a 10% drop in her 50 free

4) Kathryn Greif dropped about 15% in her 50 back since the start of the season

5) Allyssa Howard is only 1/2 second from making a WI State Cut in the 50 free and has made every meet this season

6) Lillian L'Esperance beat her goal time in the 400 free by 3 seconds and dropped about 23 seconds from her 500 free converted time

7) Maddie Miller competed in her first meet ever as a first year swimmer

8) Airiana Wyro swam the 50 back for the first time

9) Brinley Royce improved her 50 free time by 20 seconds

10) Ariana Sparks competed in her first meet ever as a first year swimmer

11) Chloe Tainter broke the team record in the 200 fly with a converted time of 2:42.80

12) Davin Zahl had a 17% drop in his 50 free

13) Holland Tainter made a WI State Cut in her 50 backstroke

14) Layla Tainter had a 10% drop in her 50 back and a 15% drop in her 50 fly

15) Egan Trabant McKenna nearly made WI State Cuts in the 50 free and the 50 breast. He's about a 1/2 second off in each event

16) Hannah Zanayed had a 10% drop in her 100 free from the first time she swam it this season

17) Lucy Zwicky swam the 100 free for the first time

I'm really proud of all the swimmers for the effort they put forth, their hard work to perfect their strokes and for the support that they're showing each other. Thank you all for supporting your kids! I love having each one of them on the team!

Andrew