ELITE NEWS BULLETIN               10-25-10

 

    “Cultivating Excellence in Academics, Character and Swimming”

 

REMEMBERING WHY WE TRAIN: AGE-GROUP SWIMMERS SUIT UP & RACE!!

K. STEARNS WINS 100 IM;

C. BALBO (2), I. LARAIA, MCGRATH, I. MORREALE, C. NASH, E. NG, L. STEARNS & G. XU PLACE 2ND:

C. BALBO EARNS JO TIME IN 100 FREE;

 

          The Elite Age Groupers limbered up their racing muscles yesterday for their first competition of the Winter 2010-11 Season. Held at the new pool at the Raritan Bay YMCA in Perth Amboy, Elite walked away with 1 winning events, 9 second place finishes, 1 new JO cut time, 10 new Holiday Classic qualifying times (new entries have been submitted) and 221 new personal best times!!!

 

            What is really exciting is that many of the events swam yesterday were not a swimmer’s primary event; most events were selected as alternative events, with best events saved for Fall Rally, to be held at the Witherspoon Pool in Princeton on November 12 thru 14!

 

            12 year old Kaitlin Stearns led Elite by winning the 11-12 girls 100 IM in 1.09.99 time. Stearns followed up with a 2nd place finish in the 100 butterfly (1.09.63).

 

            12 year old Chris Balbo dipped under the magical 1 minute mark for the 1st time in his career, posting a 59.41 to earn his 15th Junior Olympic qualifying time! Chris’s free swim placed him 2nd as did his 100 back swim of 1.08.34. Chris finished with a 3rd place finish in the 100 breast (1.20.67).

 

            14 year old Katie McGrath, who has struggled with shoulder issues for the last year, reaped the benefits of her perseverance as she placed 2nd in the 200 free (1 second drop), 3rd in the 100 free (.16 drop) and a 5th in the 100 breast (.73 drop).

 

            10 year old Evan Ng posted a 2nd place finish in the 50 back (36.73), a 3rd place finish in the 100 IM (1.18.56) & a 6th place finish in the 50 breast (44.33). All 3 swims were personal bests!

 

            13 year old Isabel LaRaia snagged a 2nd place finish in the 100 fly (1.11.76) and two 4th place finishes (100 free-1.00.83 & 100 back (1.12.07).

 

            Both 12 year old Caroline Nash and 15 year old Isabella Morreale collected a 2nd place and a 4th place finish. Nash touched 2nd in the 200 free (2.12.70) and 4th in the 100 IM (1.12.66) while Morreale touched 2nd in the 200 free (2.21.55) and 4th in the 200 IM (2.30.15).

 

            10 year old Grace Xu was 2nd in the 50 breast (slicing almost 2 seconds off her already JO cut time) and 6th place in both the 50 back (38.53) and the 50 fly (36.91).

 

            12 year old Matt Critchley grabbed a 3rd place in the  100 fly (1.18.32) and two 4th place finishes (100 free-1.05.06 & 100 breast-1.22.13).

 

            13 year old Cody Matheson had a terrific meet, slicing off over tens seconds in two events and 19 seconds in his 3rd event. Cody placed 3rd in the 200 free (2.11.46), 4th in the 100 fly (1.11.24-the 19 second drop!) & 5th in the 100 breast (1.17.14).

 

            13 year old Gabrielle Pick also collected a 3rd place, 4th place and a 5th place finish. Pick was 3rd in her 100 breast swim (1.20.74), 4th in the 200 IM (2.30.61) and 5th in the 100 back (1.12.38).

 

            10 year old Brittany Sun was good enough for a 3rd place finish in the 50 fly (36.00) and 5th in the 100 IM (1.22.99).

 

            10 year old Emily Fu dropped 7 seconds to place 3rd in the 50 back (37.40).

 

            15 year old Michael Nitting dropped .6 to place 3rd in the 200 free (2.10.14).

 

            14 year old Ryan Miller placed 4th in the 200 IM (17 second drop) and followed up with two 5th place finishes (100 fly-1.11.69 & 200 free-2.15.61).

 

            12 year old Abir Thakur came in 4th in the 100 fly (1.21.57) and 6th in the 100 free (1.07.23).

 

            10 year old Claire Xu placed 4th in the 50 back (38.07) while 14 year old Darragh O’Gorman nabbed 4th in the  200 free (2.14.89). 16 year old Mark Berns also placed 4th with his 2.10.46 performance.

 

Swimmers who participated (# in parathesis is number of best Elite SCY best times): Chris Balbo (2), Megan Balbo (3), Brielle Barba (2), Mark Berns (1), Abbie Bigham (3), Aislin Black (3), Emily Buckman (3), Schuyler Bunn (2), Eloise Burn (3), Sarah Burn (3), Meggie Butler (3), Ben Campbell (2), Richie Carchia (3), John Chiang (3), Morgan Conley (3), Jimmy Coyne (1), Matthew Critchley (1), Elizabeth D’Altrui (3), Drew D’Andrea (1), Nathan Davidovich (3), Gauri Deorkar (3), Amy Duren (3), Avinash Duvvuri (1), Lindsay Ellerthorpe, Rachel Emodi (1), Madeleine Faust, Summer Felsen (3), Andrea Ferrell (1), Emily Fu (3), Ariel Gelman, Patrick Gilfillan (3), Emily Gorham (2), Jasmine Gulati (2), Justin Gurth (2), Abbie Hartwig (3), Gab Hayek (2), Jennifer Huo (1), Alicia Iizuka (3), Erica Iizuka (2), Karen Iizuka (3), Monica Iizuka (2), Katie Iovel (2), Alex Jacobs (1), Sarah Jacobs (2), Rachel Keselman (1), Audrey Kim (3), Jessica Kraus (2), Patrick Lai (2), Clark LaRaia (2), Isabel LaRaia (1), Chloe Lawrence (3), Grace Levey (3), Alyssa Levy (2), Brandon Li (2), Ben Litvin (3), Sarah Lowe, Michael Maccia (2), Livia Maguire (1), Teddy Maguire (3), Isabelle Malinowski (3), Cody Matheson (3), Leighton Mayers (2), Katie McGrath (3), Matthew Migliozzi (2), Ryan Miller (3), Isabelle Morreale (3), Charlotte Morrissey (3), Sandeepan Mukherjee (2), Fred Nagle (3), Caroline Nash, Eugene Ng (2), Evan Ng (3), Michael Nitting (3), Dara O’Gorman (3), Nicholas Pachiolo (3), Betsy Peinado (2), Danielle Peterson (3), Gabrielle Pick (3), Joseph Pick (3), Natalie Pruitt (3), Joseph Romano (3), Brandon Rossi (3), Dmitriy Savinskiy (3), Katy Shepard (2), Abigail Shvorin (1), Samantha Siracusa (1), Delaney Smith (2), Gian Soriano (1), Kaitlin Stearns (1), Will Stearns (2), Jason Steinberg (3), Brittany Sun (2), Sachi Tanwar (3), Abir Thakur (2), Katie Tselepis (2), Zowie Vukasinovic (2), Cullen Walsh (3), Doris Xia (1), Vivian Xia (3), Claire Xu, Gloria Xu (1), Grace Xu (2) & Remenna Xu.

ELITE SENIOR LINDSAY STEARNS TO BE HONORED BY SUSAN B. KOMEN FOR ELITE-A-THON CONTRIBUTIONS!!! YEARS OF WORK RECOGNIZED!!

            Elite Senior Lindsay Stearns will be honored by the Susan B. Komen For the Cure North Jersey Foundation on Sunday, November 7 for her cumulative efforts of raising money for this prestigious foundation thru the annual Elite-a-thon each May. Lindsay is a 14 year old high school freshman at Millburn High.

            Each May, Elite holds a fundraiser for charities called Elite-a-thon. Thru Elite-a-thon, swimmers raise pledges for the charity of their choice by obligating themselves to swim laps during a 2 hour open swim.

            The Elite-a-thon was the brainchild of Elite swimmer Will Peters 9 years ago (Will is now a 22 year old Senior at Kenyon College).

Stearns has participated in Elite-a-thon each of her 8 years she has been part of the Elite Swim Club and has raised approximately….. Last May, Linday took over the responsibilities of coordinating the event and rallied Elite swimmers to the largest turnout in recent memory (39 swimmers participated)!!

            Susan B. Komen will honor Lindsay at a ceremony on Sunday, November 7 at the Saint John’s Lutheran Church in Summit.

HEADQUARTERS CALLING: HEAD COACH BILL INVITED TO “LEADERSHIP” WORKSHOP AT USA SWIMMING HEADQUARTERS IN COLORADO SPRINGS! WILL REPRESENT NJ SWIMMING:  

 

          Head Coach Bill Deatly has invited to attend a “leadership” workshop at USA Swimming’s headquarters in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Bill will be in Colorado from Thursday, Oct 28 thru Sunday, Oct 31.

 

            As the current New Jersey Swimming Administrative Chairperson (Bill sanctions all 50+ NJ Swimming meets held each year), Bill was invited along with the current NJ Swimming General Chairperson to represent our LSC at this workshop. All 59 LSC (NJ Swimming is an LSC) in the US will be represented.

 

            Topics to be discussed include: 1) current alignment of LSCs 2) can local LSC’s provide marketing for current USA Swimming sponsors (like Mutual of Omaha, Marriott Hotels, Speedo) and 3) with the newspaper market crumbling, how can USA Swimming become the media for our sport?

 

MARLIN PRACTICE SHORTENS BY 15 MINUTES STARTING NOVEMBER 15; NEWARK ACADEMY’S VARSITY SWIM TEAM TO USE POOL TO 5:15 PM, VARSITY MEETS AT NA AND MBS TO AFFECT PRACTICE SCHEDULE:

 

            Elite’s practice schedule will adjust on Monday, Nov 15 when Newark Academy’s Varsity Swim Team begins their Winter Sports Season. On Monday, Wednesday and Friday’s, practice will begin at 5:15 pm and run til 6:00 pm.

 

            The Varsity Swim Teams at both Newark Academy and Morristown-Beard will affect the schedule at both pools once high school dual meets start. Millburn High School also uses Newark Academy’s pool to train and compete (starting at 8:30 pm Monday thru Thursdays).

 

            Elite’s practice time at Newark Academy will occasionally be clipped either at the front end (NA’s meets usually end at 5:15 pm or 5:30 pm) or the back end (Millburn’s meets start at 8:00 pm). Morristown-Beard, Villa Walsh & Delbarton (both with occasionally host meets at MBS) meet schedule will occasionally clip the Senior practices at MBS.

3rd PARENT WORKSHOP WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 17 AT NA; TOPIC: LEARNED OPTIMISM:    

            Head Coach Bill Deatly will hold the season’s 3rd Parent Workshop on Wednesday, November 17 from 6:45 pm to 8:15 pm at Newark Academy. The main topic of discussion will be “Learned Optimism” or how we can train our swimmers to turn failure into hope (will work for all facets of life and for Adults, too!!).

            All Elite parents are welcome (and highly encouraged!) to attend.

TIMING COORDINATORS ASK FOR YOUR HELP IN RESPONDING TO EMAILS:

 

            Parents of Elite swimmers are asked to add the following four email addresses to your e-mail address book to ensure you receive important information regarding Elite Hosted Meets, Timing Information for all other meets and Parent Association Information.  Adding the e-mail addresses will insure that these important e-mails do not go to your junk/spam folder. 

 

Carolyn Balbo -                     cbalbo@comcast.net

Sanjeeta Mukherjee -        sanjumukhe@gmail.com         

Sue Duren -                            sueduren@aol.com

Antone Balbo -                      abalbo@comcast.net

 

NEXT UP: PEDDIE INVITE (QUALIFYING SENIORS & SENIOR PREPS ONLY) & FALL RALLY FRIDAY, NOV 12 THRU SUNDAY, NOV 8; GO ELITE!!!; MEET INFORMATION POSTED; PLEASE RESPOND TO TIMER COORDINATORS EMAILS:

 

            Elite’s next two competitions will be Peddie Invite (qualifying Seniors and Senior Preps only) and Fall Rally (Seniors, Senior Preps, Wave Golds, Wave Blacks, Wave Teals & Marlin Blacks). Information regarding this meet is posted on the team website at:

http://www.eliteswimclub.org/Meet%20Schedule/homepage.htm. Please have your swimmer get in the habit of checking this page on a regular basis (and report back to you about details such as warm-up times, entries, meet locations!

 

OUR OLYMPIAN FRIEND JOSH DAVIS WANTS YOUR REACTION TO HIS CLINIC:

 

            Last week, we received this request from our new Olympian Friend Josh Davis:

 

            “If your swimmers or your parents would like to share any personal examples of how the Jason Lezak/Josh Davis clinic may have helped them or just comments in general, we would love to post them on the Mutual of Omaha BREAKout! Swim Clinic Club Comments area of our website http://blogs.mutualofomaha.com/breakoutswimclinic/ as
well as any photos that you may have taken.

            Please EMAIL those COMMENTS and PHOTOS to me at usaswimclinics@yahoo.com. Please forward this survey to all the swimmers and parents that attended thanks!

            You can help us serve the swim community better by taking a few minutes to answer the below survey.

            Please Take Our Online Survey:  http://internetmailmanager.com/s/survey.asp?a=4748W997BUN79W9BPKLJKP77RRMMNJ4Z6&b=~personid~&v=

            Thank you for your support in hosting a Mutual of Omaha BREAKout Swim clinic. We hope you had a great time and spread the word.

All the Best,

Josh Davis
5-Time Olympic Medalist”

 

ELITE LEADING WAY WITH “SWIMMER/PARENT FRIENDLY MEETS”:

DISTANCE DERBY REFORMATTED INTO 2 HOUR SESSIONS!!!

PARENTS ARE REMINDED THEY ARE EXPECTED TO WORK THE SESSIONS THEIR SWIMMER IS COMPETING IN:

 

          The one unanimous complaint about year round swimming is the length of the meet sessions during competition. Between the need 1) to have enough swimmers/competition in the building to make the meet competitive & to pay for the pool rental 2) to have enough recovery time for the swimmers between events and 3) the USA Swimming rule discouraging sessions to last longer than 4 hours, most New Jersey Sanctioned swim meet sessions last the prescribed 4 hours.

 

            Elite is taking the lead in attempting to change these “needs” and the overall mentality within NJ Swimming. A “Swimmer/Parent Friendly Meet” is the goal of this year’s Distance Derby.

 

            Elite’s hosted meet Distance Derby (held Saturday, Nov 20 & Sunday, Nov 21) has been reformatted into more but much shorter sessions. In fact, Elite is attempting to halve the session times into 2 hour sessions (yes, you read that correct: two hour sessions!!). With any luck at all, a swimmer (and parent) will be in and out of the building in less than 3 hours (when you factor in the warm-up time). The exception will be those swimmers participating in one of the distance sessions (which have been limited to 1.5 hours). The sanctioned meet information is now posted on the team website (and more information will be posted shortly). The meet format is as follows: 

 

             Meet Schedule:

 

Saturday, November 20, 2010

Warm-up

Start

Session 1

10 & Under Day 1 Session

 12:00 p.m.

12:40 p.m.

Session 2

12 & Under 500 yd Free Session

2:40 p.m.

3:00 p.m.

Session 3

11 - 12 Day 1 Session

4:30 p.m.

5:10 p.m.

Sunday, November 21, 2010

Warm-up

Start

Session 4

13 & 14 Day 2 Session

  7:00 a.m.

    7:40 a.m.

Session 5

Open 1000 Free Session

  9:40 a.m.

  10:00 a.m.

Session 6

15 & Older Day 2 Session

11:30 a.m.

 12:10 p.m.

Session 7

10 & Under Day 2 Session

  2:10 p.m.

   2:50 p.m.

Session 8

11-12 Day 2 Session

  4:50 p.m.

   5:30 p.m.

 

          This goal is for all parents and swimmers to spend less time at the pool. In order to accomplish this, Elite put a 2 event limit per session on each swimmer’s entries.

 

          Carolyn Balbo, as team meet coordinator, will shortly be reaching out to each participating family as to meet job responsibilities. Swimmers in the Seniors, Senior Preps, Wavebuster Golds, Wavebuster Blacks, Wavebuster Teals and Marlin Blacks will participate. Please respond to Carolyn as soon as you are able.

 

POOLS WILL BREAK DOWN; CHECK EMAIL AND WEBSITE FOR INFORMATION:

 

The unfortunate fact of swimming pools is that they occasionally breakdown. And usually when it is most inconvenient (like the beginning of the season).

 

Thru the email chain, a blast will be sent to all swimmers if practice is unexpected cancelled. In addition, a note will be placed prominently on the website front page announcing the cancellation of the practice. This note serves as a reminder that swimmers (not parents) should regularly check the team website and emails in case there is a last minute pool disruption.

 

            If there is a pool disruption & practice is cancelled, all Elite members are requested to reach out to their friends (phone, text, email) to let them know of the situation. Cover your friend’s back!

 

WANT TO SAVE $? LET BILL KNOW PRIOR TO ENTRIES SUBMITTED

THAT YOUR SWIMMER WILL NOT ATTEND A MEET (OR A SPECIFIC DAY OF THE MEET):

EVENTS TO DOVE-TAILE TO UPDATE WIDEST VARIETY OF TIMES:

 

            Swimmers who know they are not available for all or part of Elite meets should email Bill early early as possible. These emails will actually result in the family saving 50% of the entry fee (credit to be posted on the swimmer’s next bill).

 

            All swimmers (and parents-with the exception of the Marlin Teals) are expected to participate and work Distance Derby (Nov 20 & Nov 21) during the sessions that their swimmers are participating).

 

            Any parent who knows their child is NOT available for one or more of these meets (and if they are not available for 1 day of a 2 day meet) should email Bill NOW!!!

 

            Swimmers and parents should note that Elite’s philosophy is to dove-tail entries for several meets. This gives the swimmer the opportunity to update the widest variety of events and distances. 

 

OFFICIALS & COMPUTER VOLUNTEERS NEEDED TO RUN MEETS:

 

          To effectively run meets, Elite needs a variety of parents to volunteer their time and efforts during these meets. This season, Elite will again be strongly encouraging those parents who have an interest to become New Jersey certified officials.

 

            To run New Jersey sanctioned meets, certified officials are a necessity. Currently within New Jersey Swimming, there is a shortage of officials certified. Elite, while having more officials than most NJ Swim Club is still understaffed and thus, under represented officiating meets. In addition, Elite likes to have officials present even when we run our dual meets/intraclub meets, as the officials provide significant feed back as to areas the coaches need to focus upon.

 

            In addition, this year Elite continue to build up its volunteers with regards to the electronic running of the meets (touch pads, timing console & processing the data coming thru both into Elite’s computer). If you are computer savvy or have an interest, please let Bill know!!

 

We are always in need of developing our Parental Talent as well!!! 

 

Anyone with interest in either volunteer position should contact Bill as soon as possible.

           

WHEN IN DOUBT, CHECK THE WEBSITE:

 

            If you have questions about Elite, your first source of information is Elite’s website located at eliteswimclub.org.  When in doubt, first check the website!!!