Cedar Park
High School Training: Jordan Foight – I have never seen Jordan back off an opportunity to challenge herself and to get better. Now, this often leads to some unpleasant experiences during practice, but through the fatigued muscles and the exhaustedly sour looks, Jordan embraces the process, and the fight. Fight is a hard thing to teach, but it’s an inspiring thing to witness, and even more so to coach. While some swimmers need a bit of extra inspiration and encouragement, Jordan seems to have her own personal source, constantly feeding off it during a set. When things get hard, or even impossible, that doesn’t stop Jordan from pushing off the wall, and putting every last ounce into each stroke. With this mentality, she is well on her way to great things in swimming and beyond. Leaders come in all shapes and sizes, generating energy and adding to the entire group- and when it comes to effort, focus, and teamwork, no one quite does it like Jordan. That, and she’ll never back off a chance to lead the cheer! Nice work Jordan, and thanks for always brining the fight to the pool! – Coach Nick
TAGS 2: Shreyush Shankar – He has really stepped up his training this month. Pushing himself and his teammates during difficult sets. His hard work has really started to pay off with a fantastic swim meet at UT a few weeks ago. At that meet he had a breakthrough swim in his 200 Free breaking 2 minutes for the first time. Congratulations and keep up the good work. – Coach Travis
TAGS 1: Zach Bann – Zach has had a phenomenal month of training, pushing his comfort level every day he is there and stepping it up at swim meets. Last UT meet swam his first mile ever and he loved it, immediately trying to do it again. Zach is also the nicest swimmer you will ever meet, always smiling not allowing himself to have a bad day. Zach you are fun to coach and fun to watch swim, you are great teammate to everyone in your group. I know we will continue to see more and more improvements from you as you go. – Coach Flo
Sectional Development: Sabrina Pitkanen – Wow, this month was extremely hard to decide on one swimmer of the month! Lots of fast swimming and incredible changes in and out of the pool. With that being said, Sabrina is the swimmer of the month for November. Sabrina has put in the work day in and day out through aches and pains and pushing through the tough times. She is eager to learn and swim as fast as possible in practice and it showed in the meet at UT. I believe at one practice she was in the middle of the warm-up set and hopped out and ran over to coach Erik, and stated, “My back and side are really sore today, but I don’t want to miss anything in practice, WHAT CAN I DO to get back in the water!” That is an incredible mindset to have! Incredible job all around, I can’t wait to see what December-February has in store for us. Way to go Sabrina! – Coach Jeremy
National Development: Lauren Partridge & Andre Kuhn – Lauren has done an outstanding job coming to practice with a positive mindset everyday. She engages the workout and does not wait for the practice to make her better. Nearly every week during a test set, Lauren is setting a new personal best! This led her to drop massive time in her last couple meets! Andre has been coming to practice daily and emptying his well. He is willing to work himself to the fullest. He also does a great job communicating regularly about his training. This work showed when he put up a number of lifetime bests the last couple meets! – Coach Elliott
Bee Cave
Middle School & High School Training: Gus Visser & Fallon Matthews – This Swimmer of the Month is dedicated to two swimmers who have improved a scary amount since joining the Nitro family. Gus began doing private lessons with Coach Felix and eventually became a part of the MS/HS Training team. He has greatly improved literally every aspect of his swimming, as well as being respectful and attentive to boot. Fallon is a self-taught swimmer. When she told me that, I honestly could not believe it because of how solid her strokes were. She has improved drastically, specifically on her breaststroke, butterfly, flip turns, and open turns. She’s quiet but works extremely hard. These two are more than deserving of December’s SOM. Amazing job, Gus and Fallon! – Coach Peter
TAGS 2: Ian Cullicott – We had our milestone (Goal) meetings this past month. It was great to hear Ian open up about what he wants to achieve over the next few weeks. One of my favorite parts of the meet is when I asked Ian what I could do to help him better prepare, and he gave such a mature response, and that was to tell him when he is was doing something right!! So many of us get caught up in correcting and fixing, that we forget to congratulate and let a swimmer know when they have done something correct. I am proud to have someone like Ian in the group to lead and show respect to all of his team mates. Way to go Ian! – Coach Allison
TAGS 1: Mason Wong – Mason has shown excellent initiative throughout the month of November. Mason has continued to edge his way up the lane order at practice and has turned into a consistent lane leader. He goes that little bit extra everyday and continues to drop times at in season meets. Mason is a mid distance freestyler, and backstroker striving to make this springs TAGS championship meet. Mason shows maturity, leadership and dedication to Nitro on a day to day basis. I look forward to seeing his hard work pay off! Go Mason! – Coach Randy
Senior: Kiara Bobb – Kiara has done everything I’ve asked of her these last few weeks, and a big change is the improved underwaters, her dive pushes the limits of the 15 meter mark, with good speed, and a breakout that is beginning to carry some force. The turns we’ve talked about and we have a little saying, “Simon Says!” so more work to do on the turns but I know she is up for the challenge. I can tell Kiara is right on the edge of breaking out, its that tired happy look swimmers get when they know the practice was a good one, no need to say well done it’s written on the face, and I see that face on Kiara more and more every week. She has some big races coming up in the next few weeks so I’m looking to keep the focus up and smiles all around! Great training young lady! – Coach Chuck
National Development: Markus Egger – Markus has really been training at a high level. He continues to embrace distance training and swimming and his times are steadily improving. Markus truly challenges himself everyday and I am excited to see his progress through the rest of the season. Congratulations on a great month. –Coach Jason
National Group: Liam Tan – Liam has shown us a new side of him with his commitment to his training, details, leadership and drive on a every practice basis. He has been stepping up his training in speed, endurance and details. This paid off for him when he had an awesome meet at UT with picking up 3 Winter Junior National bonus cuts and coming super close to the hard cuts in those 3 events. Keep up the new drive and commitment to your training! – Coach Rob