Intro to Nitro
Cedar Park: Angela Bryan – Angela never wants to miss a practice and always works 100% when at practice. Her love of the water is contagious among the kids in her lane. She always pays attentions to the little details of swimming and is not afraid to ask the coaches questions. Intro focused a lot on breaststroke this week and Angela did a fantastic job really emphasizing the glide on her breaststroke kick. Keep up the great work Angela! – Coach Hannah
Bee Cave: Curtis Chui and Rhea Zhang – Both Curtis and Rhea have grown tremendously over the past several months! Last week, Rhea demonstrated how to maintain a long body line and take a quick breath to the side while working on freestyle. Curtis demonstrated how to keep a continuous white-water flutter kick when working on freestyle and backstroke. He always brings a bright, fun spirit to each practice. Rhea brings a more quiet, sweet presence. Thank you both for being such a delight to coach each week! – Coach Raven
Bronze
Cedar Park: Izzie Merkin – This week, for the first week of fall, we tackled butterfly. It was tough, but we tried to work on our rhythm and timing, two things Izzie mastered with ease. Izzie demonstrated great timing in her butterfly, mastering the 2 kick per stroke tempo. Izzie also showed powerful butterfly kicks while maintaining a beautiful butterfly stroke. Way to go Izzie! – Coach Adam
Bee Cave: Daniel Alpatov – Daniel has done a great job improving his kick, his flexibility in the ankles has really helped power up a very strong flutter kick. When you see his free or back you always notice the white water trail through the entire race. Many of the Bronze swimmers can give a white water kick on command but Daniel now does it without thinking about it and it is a constant strong kick that rarely fades. This improved leg strength has improved the other strokes as well, this easy to do when your legs push you past the flags every turn. If you want to get better follow Daniel’s example work the legs as much as possible. Great job young man! – Coach Chuck
Technique & Fitness
Cedar Park: Lea-Anh Nguyen & Athvait Mahikatan – Both swimmers really excelled in there technique with the backstroke we were working on this past week. Great job on your underwater streamlines and making it past the flags in addition to that great job on your arm reach and body rotation. Great job you two thanks for being a part of NITRO and we’ll see you at the pool. – Coach Steve
Bee Cave: Jalen Holec–Jalen broke his ankle back in May, and he was out for a good while. Since coming back, Jalen’s worked extremely hard to get that strength back in his ankle. I’m very proud of Jalen for not letting the ankle injury discourage him despite the minor setback in the pool. He continues to improve and get stronger with every practice. I’m glad to have him back at the pool! – Coach Peter
Cedar Park: Samar Panag & Nell Yao – Samar and Nell are being recognized for being a great example to their team mates. They worked hard this week to make sure basic technique skills such as streamline and under waters off of every wall were perfect. Samar constantly asked me what he could be working on. Nell volunteered to go twice in her lane for a relay when we were short a swimmer. Both give me their best efforts at practice which is always appreciated by the coach. Thanks to you both for making your silver team better just by showing up to practice. – Coach Claire
Bee Cave: Susie Fuselier – Susie has been doing very well at practice! I always know she is putting her best efforts in to the quality of her drills, and she also has been doing a great job testing her limits on her speed. I can rely on her to come to practice ready and focused – I’ve been working on getting the group to show me 100% effort into different skills they learn, and I always can see that she is giving that. Keep up the great work, Susie, I can’t wait to see how well you race at a meet! – Coach Lianne
Advanced Silver
Bee Cave: Raydon Angie & Andre Montero – Both of these young men have truly advanced in their desire to perfect their strokes, even when it is hard. Additionally, we have been learning about “personal best times” while racing at the end of most practices, and it has been fun to watch them grow. They are both also very respectful to those around them. Great job, young men. – Coach Paige
Gold
Cedar Park: GOLD I – Polina Zeintek – In her first week in the gold group, Polina stepped up her game. We worked a lot on freestyle, looking at the breathing position and timing. Polina worked really hard to make her freestyle breath fast and low in the water, and worked to make her catch stronger. She even rocked the house on our kicking test set. Way to go Polina! – Coach Adam
Cedar Park: GOLD II – Amy Park – We always start out the season with lots of kicking, and that’s exactly where Amy shines. She is one quick kiddo who isn’t afraid to lead the pack. Amy is particularly good at butterfly kick, so she’ll tear it up this coming week as we’ll be focusing on that stroke. We coaches see a very bright future ahead of her in this sport. Way to go, Amy! – Coach Alex
Bee Cave: Ryan Herb – Welcome to Gold group Ryan! What a joy it has been having you in the group the past week. Every single day, I am blown away by your energy and politeness. The ‘Thank Yous’ are contagious, and the simple fact that after I explain a set, the response is always “this is great!” You have proven that you can effectively lead the lane and group, and your underwaters are stellar! I can’t wait to continue to work with you. – Coach Allison