ELITE NEWS BULLETIN 03-13-06
ELITE SWIMMING=MAGNIFICENT CHAMPIONSHIP SWIMMING: DART, KILCULLEN, MASON, MORREALE & FARNOW LEAD WAY:
Separated by 250 miles, the results were the same for Elite Swimmers: they were outstanding in their championship meets this past weekend.
Traveling 5 hours to compete at Harvard University’s Blodgett Pool in the 2006 Speedo Champions Series Eastern Zone Northern Sectional Meet (“Sectionals”), Chris Dart made the best of his opportunity in competing against the best swimmers in the Northestern United States. There are 10 Sectional Meets held across the county, with only the regions best swimmers competing. Sectional level swimmers are competing to qualify for Nationals and Junior Nationals.
In his signature event, Chris rocketed to a 52.11 (!!!) in the 100 yard backstroke. Already an accomplished backstroker, Chris has dropped a full 3 seconds in this event in a single year of training at Elite. Chris’s swim earned him a 6th place medal!!
Demonstrating the conditioning he has developed thru his extremely hard work and his incredible attendance (167 out of 172 practices since Sept), Chris followed up on Sunday with a 5 second drop in his 200 back swim (12th place overall with a 1.54.91 time!!!) and a 21st place finish (1.58.66!!!) in the 200 IM. Chris also competed in the 200 breast (2.15.84).
Chris’s backstroke swims realistically place him within reach of both Junior National and National leveling swimming next season.
Back at Rutgers University at New Jersey’s Silver Championships, Elite Swimmers were also rocking (reports were that Elite was not only the fastest team at the meet, but also the loudest!!!!). Fifteen separate Elite swimmers posted 32 new Junior Olympic qualifying times!!!
Simply said, Senior Katie Kilcullen had the meet of her life. In two events, Katie explored previously uncharted Elite waters: being the 1st Elite female to swim under 55 in the 100 free and under 2.00 in the 200 free!!! In the 100 free, she barely missed catapulting herself from Silvers directly (over Junior Olympics &) into Sectionals: her 1st place finish of 54.90 was just 11 hundreds shy of the Sectional Cut time (and her drop was stunning: an astonishing of 2.13 seconds!!!). Katie backed that swim up by soaring to a 1.59.57 in the 200 free. Katie also had bests in her other swims: 50 free (25.79) and 100 back (1.04.66).
Following Dart and Kilcullen’s lead were Colleen Mason, Cassandra Farnow and Ali Morreale, each of whom posted 4 Junior Olympic cut times during their weekend performances.
14 year old Mason, who has had minor knee problems this year which has prevented her from swimming/training the breaststroke, crushed her 200 breast time by 12 seconds in posting a winning 2.36.77 time. Colleen also placed 2nd in both the 200 free (2.04.78) and 100 back (1.07.02). All 6 of Colleen’s swims were personal best times.
New to the team this season, Cassandra Farnow has blossomed at Elite. In qualifying for Junior Olympics in the 200 butterfly, Cassandra has dropped 13 seconds since swimming it for the 1st time in November. Farnow also added Junior Olympic cuts in 100 fly (1.06.31) and her newly acquired breaststroke events: 100 breast (1.16.32) and 200 breast (2.40.41). Farnow now has 7 Junior Olympic cut times, all earned since arriving at Elite.
Ali Morreale, who was barely a silver level swimmer this time last year, has “morphed” into a full fledge swimming stud (Ali’s near perfect attendance coupled with her extremely impressive work ethic are the reason for the transformation). Ali qualified for JO’s in 4 of her 5 events this weekend and now has qualifying times in 13 separate events!!! Ali won the 200 breast with a 2.49.75 time!!!
Other swimmers qualifying for Junior Olypmics were:
1) Senior Austin Meszaros also almost catapulted himself into Sectionals with his blistering 49.02 100 free swim (just 3 hundreds of a second over the qualifying Sectional time)
2) In winning her event, Senior Veronica Smith posted a 1.12.91 JO cut time in her 100 breast swim.
3) Senior Nick Trojanowski cruised to a 5.01.07 time in the 500 free.
4) 12 year old Carolyn DeMeo is becoming more confident in her distance events as she crushed the qualifying times in both the 200 butterfly (2.39.18-dropping 15 seconds in) and the 200 back (2.34.86).
5) 12 year old Spencer Fisch added to his Junior Olympic resume in both the 200 back (2.45.69) and 100 free (1.02.57). Spencer is a 1st year winter swimmer!
6) 12 year old Greg Keiser also added 2 events to his next weekend swims by posting a 1.12.27 time (winning time) in the 100 IM and a 2.38.81 in the 200 IM
7) 12 year old Priya Duvvuri collected her 12th and 13th Junior Olympic cut times with impressive “off event” swims in the 50 (37.37) and 100 (1.20.63) breast swims
8) 14 year old Tad Deatly added a 2nd backstroke Junior Olympic cut to his swimming next weekend by placing 4th in the 100 back (1.04.60)
9) Deatly’s training partner 13 year old Venkatesh Duvvuri dropped 7.5 seconds in clocking a 2.20.91 in the 200 IM, scoring a JO cut.
10) 12 year old Emmie Lai, who just missed the 400 IM JO cut, followed up by cruising under the 200 back qualifying time with a 2.39.87 swim.
11) 13 year old Danielle Martinez sailed to a Junior Olympic cut in the 200 back with a 2.24.07 time
There were literally dozens of spectacular Elite swims this weekend. Crissy Condus and Juli Furdyna continued their friendly but fierce competion (each posting best times each time they swum). Mickey Ennis dropped 47 seconds in this 1650 free swim. Many, many swimmers dropped significant time to get within striking distance of Junior Olympic qualifying times.
Full results are now posted on the Elite website. Full Sectional results are posted under swimindex.com. All in all, quite an impressive weekend of swimming.
Swimmers who participated in Silvers were: Danielle Basile (3), Crissy Condus (6), Victoria D’Altrui (2), Peter Davey (5), Corey Deatly, Tad Deatly (4), Christian DeFluri (3), Carolyn DeMeo (2), Claire DiGiacomo (2), Shelby Dixon, Krishna Duvvuri (4), Priya Duvvuri (2), Venkatesh Duvvuri (4), Mickey Ennis (4), Kevin Estok (3), Cassandra Farnow (4), Kristen Fedor, Spencer Fisch (5), Breana Fitzpatrick (1), Julianne Furdyna (5), Alex Gonzalez (3), Duncan Hall (4), Jerel Ho, Ben Inglese (1), Katie Inglese, Brent Jones (3), Kim Jones, Greg Keiser (4), Victoria Keiser, Kirsten Kellstrom, Katie Kilcullen (4), David Knaus (3), Emmie Lai (4), Ricky LaSalvia (3), Danielle Martinez (1), Robert Maloney (1), Colleen Mason (6), Shayla McDonnell (1), Sarah McGrath (2), Austin Meszaros (3), Ali Morreale (5), Madison Munoz (1), Maggie Nelson (2), Sarah Peay (5), Will Peters (3), Matt Poloniak (1), Katie Ragan, Collin Reilly (2), Brittany Ross (4), Nicki Ross (3), Amanda Scherb, Lindsay Scott (2), Veronica Smith (3), Lily Thompson (3), Nick Trojanowski (5), Sydney Todd, Michael Wang (2) & Kayla Wolonsky (4).
As
noted earlier in the season, Elite will be recognizing its Scholar Athletes
starting this year thru new awards to be presented at the Awards Banquet this
year: the Elite Scholar-Athlete Awards.
These
awards will be broken down into three levels:
1) All-American
Scholar Athlete Award: Swimmer must have a 3.5 grade average and at least 1
Sectional Qualifying time. This award is actually a USA Swimming Award and will
be presented by New Jersey Swimming. Elite will also provide a certificate to
those swimmers who have qualified for this award.
2) The Elite
Scholar-Athlete Gold Award: A swimmer must have all A’s and no more than 1 B
(or the equivalent of all A’s and 1 B) plus at least 1 individual Junior
Olympic QualifyTime
3) The Elite
Scholar-Athlete Teal Award: Swimmer must have all A’s and B’s (of the
equivalent) plus at least 1 individual Silver Qualfying Time
In addition to
each swimmer receiving an impressive certificate from Elite acknowledging this
achievement, from this season forward Elite will post the names of its scholar
athletes on its website-forever acknowledging its most special
scholar-athletes.
In order to be
eligible, a swimmer or parent must provide a copy of their latest valid report
card (plus legend, if necessary) to Bill by Wednesday, March 22. These copies
can be given to Bill or mailed to Bill at 32 Prospect Street, Summit, New
Jersey 07901. The certificates will be presented at the Awards Dinner on
Sunday, March 26th.
WAVE BLACKS: SPRING SCHEDULE ALTERED (ON SAT):
Pursuant
to the request at the January Parents Meeting to discuss the new Spring
Schedule, Elite has altered its spring schedule with regards to practice time
on Saturdays for the Wave Blacks. During the Spring 2006 Session, the Wave
Blacks will practice at Newark Academy from 9:30 am to 11:00 am on Saturdays.
Because
of a conflict with the Newark Academy High School Swim team, Elite will not be
able to provide this Saturday am practice time throughout the Winter 2006-07
Session. The tentative plan is for Elite to have this am practice time from September
thru November 15 and then move it to Saturday pm from 2:45 pm to 4:00 pm
“ELITE” OLYMPIANS BREAK 4
AMERICAN RECORDS:
Elite’s
favorite female and male Olympians broke 4 American records while competing
last week at the 2006 American Short Course Championships held in Austin,
Texas.
Tara
Kirk, Elite’s 2006 Olympian, posted two blistering times in setting new
standards in both the Women’s 100 yard breast (57.71) and the 200 yard
breaststroke (2.05.73).
Neil
Walker, Elite’s 2005 Olympian, teamed with fellow University of Texas alumni
Aaron Piersol, Brendan Hansen and Ian Crocker to post new records in the 200
yard Medley Relay (1.24.00) and the 400 yard Medley Relay (3.02.94).
This past week, New Jersey Swimming named Elite Assistant Coach Pete Loftus as Head Coach of the New Jersey SCY Zone Team for the Spring 2006 Zone Championships. The Zone team is an NJ All-Star team that will compete at the Northern Zone Championships March 30th thru April 1st at Long Island’s Nassau County Aquatic Center in Hempstead, New York.
Swimmers who place in the top 2 at Junior Olympics are picked to represent New Jersey Swimming at the Eastern Zone Meet. NJ Swimmers will compete against swimmers of a similar level from Maine all the way down thru Virginia in this annual contest. Elite hopes to land 1-2 swimmers on the squad to represent NJ this spring.
Loftus will be responsible for the coordination of the assistant coaches, each of who is assigned to a specific age group (10 & U, 11-12, 13-14 & 15 & Older). Pete will also be responsible for coordinating the trip.
Congratulations to Coach Pete!!!
SPRING CONFIRMATIONS NEEDED BY MONDAY, MARCH 13:
As Elite readies for the Spring Session, information is needed as to each swimmer’s intent on training with Elite this spring. As each Elite swimmer knows, a roster space will be reserved for each swimmer as long as they remain in good standing with the club.
In order to understand how many swimmers Elite can take as a result of tryouts on Tuesday, March 21st, a list of those swimmers who are currently planning on training with Elite this spring/summer is now posted on the website (under Spring 06). Those swimmers in the Seniors, Senior Preps, Wave Golds and Wave Blacks who commit are expected to train with Elite thru Summer JO’s. Those swimmers in the Wave Teals, Marlin Blacks and Marlin Teals are expected to train with Elite thru Friday, June 9th.
If a swimmer has trained with Elite both this past winter and this spring/summer, a roster spot will be reserved for them next winter. If a swimmer opts not to train with Elite this spring (or is added as a result of the March, 2006 tryouts), they will need to tryout again for next years team. Tryouts for next year are expected to be in late July this summer –rather than in early September.
JUNIOR OLYMPIC RELAY COMBINATIONS ARE FLUID:
Coupled with the goal to have each swimmer swim as fast as possible, an additional goal of Elite coaches at the Junior Olympics is to tally as many points as possible as a team. Swimmers and relays that place in the top 16 score points for their team.
In order to have the fastest combination of swimmers for each relay, the coaches need to have the fastest swimmers placed on each relay in each age group. This may entail changing the combination of who is on each relay right up to the start of the race!!!
Even if a swimmer’s name is posted on the website as a relay participant, each relay combination is subject to change depending on a number of different factors (ie. who’s hot, who’s not, swims at Silvers, etc). Please check the website and your coach for the latest relay combinations.
GET PYSCHED!!! POSTER MAKING SESSIONS FOR CHAMPS:
To help our swimmers get pysched for their meets, Elite will be holding “Poster Making Sessions” prior to the Championship Meets. Coordinated by Coach Leighann Marcelliano, each swimmer will have an opportunity to make a poster to post on the walls of the pool hosting the Championship Meets.
This Thursday from 4:30 pm to 5:15 pm, Leighann will be hosting the poster making session at Newark Academy for the Mini-Championships and the Bronze Championships. Markers and poster board will be supplied by Elite-all a swimmer needs to do is to arrive earlyand be ready to create!! Let’s get pysched for big meets!!!!
SPRING SESSION: TRYOUTS TUESDAY,
MARCH 21ST :
Elite will hold a spring session from Monday, April 3 thru Friday, June 9. Tryouts for all ages will be held Tuesday, March 21 from 4:30 pm to 6:00 pm at Newark Academy.
Swimmers
currently training with Elite will be asked at their practices if they intend
to train this spring. The list of swimmers
participating in the Spring 2006 Session will be posted on the website under
Spring 2006.
All
swimmers whom have trained with Elite during the Winter 2006 and Spring 2006
sessions will automatically have a roster spot reserved for them (assuming they
respond positively this summer) for the Winter 2006-07 Session. Swimmers who opt
not to train during the Spring 2006 Session will need to earn their roster spot
for the Winter 2006-07 Session thru a summer tryout.
SWIM SUIT POLICY DURING
CHAMPIONSHIPS:
As each member of Elite knows, wearing the Elite Team Suit during meets is essential. This policy is followed thru out the season with one the very large exception: during championships.
The technology of swim suits has progressed significantly in the last few years. Suits such as Speedo’s Fast Skin II actually repel the water away from the swimmer’s body. These suits have been proven to provide better hydro-dynamics. These suits can not be made in a “team” fabric-they are formulated for speed-not team unity.
Elite’s team policy regarding suits during championships
is the following: a swimmer may wear a non-Elite “technology advanced”
suit during championship season (ie. Mini-Champs, 9-10 Silver/Bronze, Bronze,
Silvers & JO’s). If a swimmer does
not purchase such a suit, they will be expected to wear the Elite Team Suit
during championships. This policy is only for the Championship Season and Elite
Swimmers will be expected to wear their team suits again in competition this
summer (until Summer Championship Season) and again next winter (until Winter
Championship Season).
Swimmers who do not buy a Fast Skin Suit or have misplaced/lost their Elite team suit are expected to contact Bill (who still has a small inventory of team suits) immediately (there is still time enough to order team suits!). If a swimmer is not in a team suit at Championships, THEY MAY BE PULLED FROM THE MEET. Elite is a team and teams compete at all meets (but especially championships) in a uniform!!!
SWIM MEETS ON THE
HORIZON:
Elite’s meet schedule ends with this weekend’s Junior Olympics.
1) Junior Olympics (All Swimmers at the JO
Level 9 & Older): Friday, March 17 thru Sunday, March 19. Meet information
posted.
SUMMER LONG
COURSE MEET SCHEDULE REVISED:
Adjusting to the
increased participation in summer “long course” competition, New Jersey
Swimming has announced a restructure of the schedule of its championship meets.
To meet the additional
interest in summer competition (last summers meets were terribly overcrowded),
NJ Swimming will hold a Bronze Level Meet this summer in addition to “moving
back” the Junior Olympic competiton.
Junior Olympics will be
held Friday, August 4 thru Sunday, August 6, 2006 at Rutgers University.
12 & Under Silvers will be held Saturday,
July 15 and Sunday, July 16 at Rutgers (same weekend as in the past).
13 & Older Silvers will be held Saturday,
July 22 and Sunday, July 23 at Rutgers (same weekend as in the past).
Bronze Championships will be held on Saturday, July 29 and Sunday,
July 30 in Bayonne (at an outside venue!).