Back to Archive List Even at the beginning of the week, you could sense that the stakes had been elevated as the meet against Scott Valley loomed ahead. An incessant rain peppered the swimmers and coaches on Monday. While the coaches' water resistant parkas seemed to be buckling, the resolve and commitment of the coaches and swimmers held firm. It was really special to see packed swim lanes throughout the practices as the Strawberry Seals shrugged off the unfavorable weather. The competitive fire burned bright as the practice week progressed with the usually mild mannered Coach Marta Sato pacing down the pool deck like a tiger in a cage stressing the importance of well executed transitions at the walls to the six-o-clock swimmers. Participation remained high throughout the week and was punctuated by a blow-out Boyle park picnic party. Seal buddies bonded with balloon tosses and whip cream relays facilitated by Stacy Ciauri and Sloan Klein.

Relays and the Golden Flipper

As the week's preparation came to an end, the stage was set for Saturday's Tiburon Bridge Battle between the Strawberry Seals and the Scott Valley Sea Serpents. The Seals struck early with an amazing come from behind victory in the 8 and under mixed relay as Ethan Zener did his best Jason Lezak impression swimming a wonderful anchor freestyle leg. While we won the early battle, the Scott Valley Sea Serpents won the war taking the overall points (326 - 223) and the Golden Flipper. While a victory is nice, more lessons are learned and character developed often in defeat. Our Strawberry Seals showed a lot of competitive valor and heart not surrendering in any event pushing Scott Valley leading to personal records for our Strawberry Seals swimmers and allowing Scott Valley Swimmers to eclipse team and pool records. Let's tip our swim caps and goggles to Kimi Wu, the Klopfer Brothers (Luke and Curtis), Annie Whelan, Nicky Chan, Armani Roots, Alex Takeshita, Zach Cohen, Caitlin Firmage, Daniel Patino, Steve Marais, and Anna Tarka for solid representation in the relay.

Coach Anna Tarka is blessed with one of the deepest 8 and under girls group this year with Kimi Wu, Annelie Miller, Hannah Rose Grant, Jada Andrews, Natalie Towle, Olivia Cooke, and Veronika Miller accomplishing Q-times or within striking distance.

One of the on-going highlights of the Scott Valley meet has to be the races between Armani Roots and Scott Valley's Sasha Petrova providing on-lookers with nail-biting excitement. Thank you Armani! Congrats to wonder-girl Annie Whelan for hitting the trifecta on her individual events with three first-place finishes for the 9-10 girls. Alexa Zener continued to show her command of the breast-stroke even as she ages up to 11-12.

All Star Times
Kimi Wu, Hannah Rose Grant, Alex Mortimer, Annie Whelan, Armani Roots, Curtis Klopfer, Jimmy Thomas, Zack Glenn, and Zack Cohen displayed versatility achieving three "Q" times. Annelie Miller, Caitlin Firmage, and Zoey Smith doubled up on "Q" times. Alex Takeshita, Bridget Went, Alexa Zener, Mara Pulgram, Sam Osburn and Ingmar Bastian achieved a "Q" time in breaststroke. Ethan Zener followed up from the medley relay with a backstroke qualifying time, and so did Gabriel Patino. Superfly Nicky Chan took home a "Q" time in the butterfly. Luke Klopfer and Jada Andrews showed that swimming runs in the family with "Q" times in the freestyle.

Let's also give a special recognition to our 13-14 swimmers who swam in the 15-18 group, scored valuable points and more importantly provided good examples to the younger swimmers. Special thanks to you, Mae Puckett, Bridget Lowry, Miles Lundgren, Paul Myrner, Leo Thomas, and Daniel Patino. Of course a shout out to our 15-18 swimmers Charlotte Rosenfield and Kerry Norris who kept the youngsters in line ;-)

While the week started under a blanket of rain, the meet ended under a blazing sun with the day's peak temperature of 77 degrees as the kids jumped into the pool making it resemble a pot of boiling potatoes.

Best Times
An amazing 328 best times have been established (including 48 three-best times!) thanks to the strong competition from our friendly neighbors off Camino Alto and many lessons will be learned from the experience and coaches' feedback during the meet. Let's hope Coach Nick Wooter's voice has recovered so he can share more of his wisdom this week in practice. Finally, special thanks to Scott Valley for their hospitality and a all around fun meet.

Here come the Orcas
Enthusiasm should be running even higher after last week given everyone's progress and our first home meet against the Orca's which will be preceded by a pep rally sponsored by Pasta Pomodoro on Friday night. Make sure to respond to the EVITE and send any meet photo's you have taken to Leslie Culhane at: leslieculhane@yahoo.com.