Notes from the Coach - December 15th 2014

A GOOD FOUR WEEKS:

The majority of the team may be inexperienced but you determined and supportive of each other and that has shown in the first 4 weeks of practice and our first two meets. There has been significant progress already and there’s still work that needs to be done especially on starts and turns, but everyone is coming along. Much thanks to Senior Brianna Staavas who has been helping with the new swimmers. She and I both would rather have had her swimming but she has been able to help the team in many other ways.

We now have two meets under our belts and have had many good swims already. You can’t judge a season by the first two meets but I this could be a very exciting year.

LaGrande HS Invitational Dec. 20^th bus leaves at 7:00

Our next meet is in LaGrande at the Veteran’s Pool:L a nice pool with touch pads and room for parents to watch. The bus leaves at 7:00 with warm ups at 10:50 and the meet starting at noon. I have done a poor job of predicting when we will be home, but I will make a guess the meet will be over by 3:30 and we will be back home between 7:00 and 8:00 PM.

INDIVIDUAL GOALS

I reviewed your goals sheets from the PEE and I feel you all have aggressive but realistic  idea what you want to accomplish this year. For mental skills many of you mentioned working on staying calm before your events at the meets. We will talk about different ways that have worked for other swimmers so you can find what works for you.

TOP 10 D-21 RECORDS:

At the River City Invitational, Ben Feil set a new D-21 school record for the 100 Breaststroke nudging Andrew to second place. And Annessa moved up to the 2^nd best D-21 time in the 50 free and 3^rd in the 100 Free. Congratulations to both of them.

THE DALLES HIGH SCHOOL INVITATIONAL - JANUARY 10^TH

Just a heads up to all the new swimmers. Our home meet usually has around 10 teams competing and takes quite an effort to stage. Fortunately we have the able leadership of Kevin and Jamie Bailey, but we need the assistance of your parents such as to timing (which is easy to learn and you have the best seats in the house), providing the food for the volunteers, announcing and other jobs. Kevin may be contacting your parents sometime in the future to find out how they can help.