NCSA Junior National Meet Recap from Coach Tim O’Brien
First off some thank you’s: Thank you to all our parents that supported this trip for their swimmers as it was an incredible experience on a BIG Time stage. Without parental support trips like these would not be possible! Thank you to Coach Mike and Tracy for their help and support behind the scenes. Thank you to Coach Greg and Coach Todd for taking a week away from their families to be with our 31 swimmers for 15-18 hour days and some that were even longer. Grueling but rewarding meet and without these coaches working those long hard days our swimmers would not have been nearly as successful as they were! Lastly thank you to the swimmers…it was our largest team ever and they behaved like champions in and out of the pool. We had zero issues on any front with behavior and the swimmers were prompt for every meeting, meal ect. Easy group for us to travel with and thus made a long hard week easier for us so thank you!
Secondly on the meet itself: Tough conditions with the prelims sessions in the mid 40’s ( pool is open air bldg ) so the deck was freezing for all the swimmers, way overcrowded warm-ups and then heats that were so close for instance in the girls 100 free there were 62 swimmers under 51.99 and then 110 more a second above that. There was zero margin for error from the swimmers in prelims and those that handled those conditions and adversity generally came back at night and did great. As a team we can take an easier path and got to sectionals ( where in our Section two teams from California went 1-2 0 and win the meet with many more swimmers getting those night time swims or we can raise the bar for the swimmers, let them know what the best inn the nation 18 and under are doing and then race them up. That is why we accepted the challenge and we will continue to climb that ladder and get to the top of the podium where Nationals Capital and Dynamo now reside. Our swimmers need to race the best to eventually beat the best. We did a very respectable job in the standings…but the phrase happy…but not satisfied applies here. The Nitro National Groups team swimming goal is to be in the number one position on the podium at Junior Nationals and this meet was a great step in that direction for us though there is still much work to be done as well!
Meet Highlights:
Combined Team Standings: Nitro finished 10th out of 350 plus teams that qualified. The Nitro men were 8th
South Texas Records:
William Licon 50 breast- 25.78
William Licon 200 breast- 1:56.00
William Licon 400 im- 3:47.75
Women’s 200 Medley Relay- Abby Meyer (27.22 ), Lauren Thomson ( 29.39 ), Bridget Boushka (25.90 ), Samantha Sutton ( 23.61 )
Men’s 800 Free Relay- William Licon ( 1:40.12 ), Trent Jackson ( 1:39.23 ), Hunter Artmann ( 1:40.68 ) and Nathan Howells ( 1:40.84 )
Nitro Team Records:
15-16 Girls:
Abby Artmann- 100 breast ( 1:02.58 ), 200 breast ( 2:14.49 ),
Samantha Sutton 50 free ( 23.51 )
Haley Timmons 100 fly ( 56.65 )
Lauren Thompson- 400 im ( 4:20.39 )
15-16 Boys:
Tate Jackson- 50 free ( 20.72 ), 100 free ( 46.69 )
17-18 Boys:
William Licon- 100 breast ( 54.78 ), 200 breast ( 1:56.00 ), 200 im ( 1:46.24 ), and 400 im ( 3:47.75 )
Girls Relays:
Women’s 200 Medley Relay– Abby Meyer (27.22 ), Lauren Thomson ( 29.39 ), Bridget Boushka (25.90 ), Samantha Sutton ( 23.61 )
Women’s 400 Free Relay– Karling Hemstreet ( 52.12 ), Mackenzie Franklin ( 52.02 ), Abby Artmann ( 52.50 ) and Samantha Sutton ( 51.83 )
Boys Relays:
200 Medley Relay – Zach Thomas ( 25. 65 ), William Licon ( 24.95 ), Mason Tenney ( 22.74 ), and Tate Jackson ( 20.35 )
200 Free Relay– Tate Jackson ( 20.86 ), Trent Jackson ( 20.64 ), Will Licon ( 21.42 ), and Mark Curley ( 21.37 )
400 Medley Relay– Zach Thomas ( 51.76 ), Will Licon ( 53.71 ), Mason Tenney ( 49.99 ) and Trent Jackson ( 44.85 )
400 Free Relay– Trent Jackson ( 46.52 ), Tate Jackson ( 45.93 ), Will Licon ( 46.33 ) and Hunter Artmann ( 46.59 )
800 Free Relay– William Licon ( 1:40.12 ), Trent Jackson ( 1:39.23 ), Hunter Artmann ( 1:40.68 ) and Nathan Howells ( 1:40.84 )
**** Amazing accomplishment that the boys set team records in every relay possible!!! Big time swim on the 400 MR as well crushing an already strong team record in that event!
A Finals swims:William Licon- 4 ( including 3 seconds and a third ) and Abby Artmann-2
B Finals swims: Trent Jackson-1, Christina Jonsson 1, and Will Licon 2
C Finals swims: Tate Jackson-1 and Lauren Thomson-1
D Finals swims: Nathan Howells-1, Samantha Sutton-1 and Sydney Tan-2
Non swimming highlights:
1) Mark Curley in his last Nitro meet before heading to West Point this summer going behind the blocks for each and every swim we had and getting each swimmer psyched up with his songs and spirit!
2) The team interacted very well and had a great time away from the pool and the trip included a visit to Universal City Walk and Clearwater beach. Here is a great quote from the late Fran Crippen…
3) Zach Thomas deserves some special recognition as even though he kept just missing making finals at night he never gave up and kept fighting through his last swim on the 400 MR. Our 200 MR had a bad break being in an end lane and the the end 3 swimmers did not hear the start and left late. Zach fought valiantly to catch up and the relay still set a team record! Zach battled hard to make finals and had some amazing drops like in his 400 im from a 4:08 to a 4:00 and his 200 back from a 1:52 to a 1:50. Great meet for Zach and felt he deserved a special mention!
4) Lastly after the boys 800 FR swam in finals the rest of the team went back to the hotel for dinner while our swimmers warmed down until 9:00 pm. As we were leaving the building an official ran outside after us to let us know that she was so impressed with Nitro’s spirit, sportsmanship and support of each other that she felt it important to pass on to the team. She said of all the teams she watched in the meet ours just stood out to her in a great way! We spoke about that in the team meeting and could not be more proud of the team for representing in such a great Nitro fashion and it never gets old hearing comments like that from anyone. Great impressions made and for the right reasons!
” I don’t remember all of my races…but I remember all of my friends!”
Amazing meet, memories and learning experiences for all for a lifetime. Again…many thanks to all who made it possible. Now on to LCM 2013! I will have season schedule and preview out this upcoming week. Very proud of the team we took to Orlando—they represented Nitro in the manner we would expect both in and out of the pool!
Thank you—Tim
