Intro to Nitro
Cedar Park: Emma Cooke – Emma tried diving for the first time this week! Although she was nervous, she decided not to let fear stop her! Not only did she try diving, but by the end of practice she was tackling the blocks! This is quite the accomplishment! We were proud of her determination and bravery. Great job, Emma! – Coach Jessie
Bee Cave: Indie Whitaker – Indie did such a good job this week! Sometimes she can get a bit intimidated in practice, but this week she really gave it her all. We had our challenge set on Monday and she was able to power through and keep going when it got tough. I’m so proud of you Indie! Keep up the hard work! – Coach Meghan
Bronze
Cedar Park: Sophia Carey – Sophia Carey had a great week working on Butterfly and was an exceptional teammate as well. There were numerous times I saw her helping out teammates, giving high fives or encouraging others. I am very proud of the changes she made in her butterfly, but even more proud of how great of a teammate she was. – Coach Jeremy
Bee Cave: Maya Kothari – Maya has been stepping up in a big way over the past couple of weeks making big improvements in every stroke. She is really starting to get that feel for the water where she is grabbing it and not letting go. I was especially impressed with her freestyle this week. We talked about body rotation all practice and Maya really picked up on it quickly. She is setting herself up for long term success and I’m very excited about it. Great Job Maya, Keep it up! – Coach Jared
Technique & Fitness
Cedar Park: Reyna Wang & Imaad Thakur – Reyna really rocked her under waters and did a great job with her kicking this weekend. Imaad did a great job leading his lane and really did well when we did the time set. Great job you two thanks for being a part of NITRO and we’ll see you at the pool. – Coach Stephen
Bee Cave: Cole DeLaPaz – Cole always come with a big smile on his face! This time, he had such a great week, maybe he even left with a bigger smile. It was backstroke week, and Cole really took on the challenge on the backstroke streamlines! He was going past the “fruit loops” for sure, and in great form! Keep up the good work! –Coach Linda
Silver
Cedar Park: Rance Blancaflor – Swimmer of the week is chosen for many different reasons, whether it be a massive time drop, showing good sportsmanship, or being a stellar team mate, but one thing I am sure, this week swimmer of the week goes to Rance. Rance just finished BB champs in style. Within the past few weeks Rance was able to qualify for B champs, and then BB champs, and finally, this past weekend he swam three A times, qualifying him for STAGS. The thing that impressed me the most with Rance was his laid back attitude and simply wanting to race to improve for himself and no one else. He had no pressures for anyone or anything. He just went out and swam. You are a rock star Rance! – Coach Allison
Bee Cave: Madeleine Dunn – Sometimes great swims come out of great adversity, when your new to doing swim meets and you walk into a Championship Meet, the noise, large crowd, on deck a controlled chaos, no warm up pool, and your first and only event of the day is the 200 free, on top of the fact that you could only warm up for 10 minutes in a pool with about 30 swimmers per lane. This had no effect on Madeleine, or at least she didn’t show, she charged after her 200 going out in 38 and held just over 43 per every 50 thereafter, going 2:50 and dropping 6 seconds super job young lady! Can’t wait for finals tonight in the 50 back! – Coach Chuck
Advanced Silver
Cedar Park: Victoria Caldera – Victoria Caldera is this week’s SOW. Victoria has some of the best ears of the group – when she is told corrections, she immediately does her best to make herself a better swimmer. Vicki also knows when and how to race like a champ, and it’s evident that she’s pushing her abilities. Keep working hard, Vic! – Coach Alex
Bee Cave: Anya McCallum, Lisa Kortekaas, Mia Nobles, Truman Armstrong, David Lax, Jillian Cox, Leah Michalski & Eleanor (Ellie) Corbett – They all gave an amazing SWIM in this weekend Championships, you really rocked guys. AWESOME!! Better times and finals in almost every event during the Champs. Like I’ve said before my friends, hard work pays off and I honestly feel like this is a perfect example of that. Keep it up swimmers, and let’s continue working like this..#proudcoach! FOCUS FOCUS FOCUS!!! SI SI SI!! – Coach Felix
Gold
Cedar Park: Audrey Dieckert, Kelly Digby, Jaylin DuBose, Alyssa England, Chad Fifield, Kelson Flynn, Bella Gamez, Alex Hoang, Trinity Hoang, Julia McCurley, Mater McCusker, Adam Micek, Anoushka Narayan, Taylor Shorb, Kendall Strauss, Kristina Vujosevic, Alex Warren, Andrew Yu – Congratulations to all of our BB Champs swimmers. It was a long meet weekend of prelims and finals with very limited warm up and warm down opportunities. Despite this all of our swimmers stayed positive and continued to swim lights out throughout the weekend. Everyone was focused and driven to improve in every race and then do it all over again a couple hours later. I am very impressed with how all the swimmers conducted themselves throughout the meet. Congratulations again to all of you. – Coach Travis
Bee Cave: Hannah Griesmer – Imagine your toughest swim set, one where you are asked to swim your fastest, over and over, push it to the max every single swim, no add the fact that you will not be able to warm down at all after every swim, now add on 100s, 200s, and the 500, this is what Hannah’s weekend was like at BB Champs. Sprint as fast as you came, race till you drop, the muscles ache, the lungs burn, and you have no way to swim it out of the body, just step up and do it again, and again. Hannah did it with a smile, dropped 8 seconds in her 500 free, her first event, but was really gassed out by the 5th session on the third day, she dropped a little less than a second in her 200 back, but right before she swims that 200 back in finals she asks what will she have to do to make the TAGS Group, I replied “Well the coach is standing right there, impress him!”, and that was all it took, a new spring came back to her start, the hands moved fast over the water, legs right on top of the kick, turns and under waters were her best of the meet, and what was a small drop in time at prelims was now 6 seconds faster! TAGS Coach “Not Bad!”, great job Hannah, way to push through your pain, your coaches are very proud! – Coach Chuck