February 17th - Update

Happy President's Day Weekend!

Practice: There is no practice Monday Feb 18th - Bethpage is closed for winter break. Next practice will be Feb 25th, and we will hold our 3rd in house meet, the Presidential Plunge.

League Meet: Our next league meet is Sunday, March 2nd vs St Agnes at the Aquatic Center. Warm-ups start at 4:00pm, so please meet in the stands starting at 3:30, but no later than 4pm so that we may take attendance and finalize the schedule of events. Anyone showing after 4pm, without prior notice, may lose a spot in one of their races.

Championship: The League Championships have been moved to Friday April 4th at the Aquatic Center. Warm-ups begin at 6pm. I ask that all swimmers attend the meet, even if you will not be swimming. I plan to post the list of swimmers who will be participating the week of March 24th.

See you all next Monday (2/25).

Coach Carroll

February 2 Meet vs St Agnes

Another very good showing against a very strong St Agnes swim team. Despite losing (233-148), the meet literally came down to seconds in each event. Although we only won 2 of the 16 relays events, we did finish a close 2nd in 12 of them. To give you an idea, had we won 9 of them instead of a close 2nd, we would have won the meet.

We continue to dominate the individual races. In the 30 individual events, our high finish in each event was...

• First in 13 events (including 7 of the first 8 events)
• Second in 13 events
• Third in 3 events
• Fourth in 1 event

Congratulations to our swimmers who earned 21 first place ribbons...

• Maggie Lavelle: 8U Girls 25 yd Freestyle
• Cassandra Gharnit: 10U Girls 25 yd freestyle
• Kyle Carroll: 10u Boys 25 yd Freestyle
• Gabriella Vidad: 8U Girls 25 yd Backstroke (Gabriella is now 4-4 this year in this event)
• Eamonn McNicholas: 8U Boys 25 yd Backstroke
• Nicolette Chase: 10U Girls 25 yd Backstroke
• Kyle Carroll: 10U Boys 25 yd Backstroke (Kyle is now 4-4 this year in this event)
• Mike Ziedalski: 14U BNoys 50 yd Freestyle
• Zach Hoehing: 18U Boys 50 yd Freestyle
• Kelly Meenan: 12U Girls 25 yd Backstroke
• Kiley Ferreri: 14U Girls 50 yd Backstroke
• Zach Hoehing: 18U Boys 50 yd Backstroke
• Michael Themistocleous: 12U Boys Breaststroke
• Nicolette Chase: 10U Girls 100 yd Medley Relay
• Cassandra Gharnit: 10U Girls 100 yd Medley Relay
• Libbie Sudweeks: 10U Girls 100 yd Medley Relay
• Brianna Donlon: 10U Girls 100 yd Medley Relay
• Mike Ziedalski: 18U Boys 100 yd Freestyle Relay
• Bryan Purcell: 18U Boys 100 yd Freestyle Relay
• Eric Arians: 18U Boys 100 yd Freestyle Relay
• Zach Hoehing: 18U Boys 100 yd Freestyle Relay (that's 3 first place finishes this meet)

I am very proud of how our swimmers continue to improve. What is not always reflected in the final results is how much our swimmers who finish 4th, 5th or 6th have improved their times since we began back in October. They too should be commended!

The enthusiasm and cheering coming from both the swimmers and the fans is tremendous - keep it up!

Next Practice
Monday Feb 4th. I hope to have both of our volunteer HS student coaches down to work with our younger swimmers.

Next In House Meet
Monday February 25. This is an imprtnat in house meet, as I will be using the times for each event to guage how each of our swimmers has improved. 10U will start at 6:30. 18U will start at approximatly 7:45.

Next Meet
Sunday March 2, 4pm vs St. Agnes at the Aquatic Center. Please be at the Aquatic center by 3:45. We will meet in the stands to sign in.

The Feb 9th meet has been postponed until March 29.

Communication
The communication from each of you as parents has been outstanding and is greatly appreciated. The last 3 meets, every swimmer who was expected to swim was in attendance. Not only does this make it easier for the coaches to prepare for the events, but it helps promote team unity.

Meets
During the meets, all swimmers must remain on the benches and may not leave without prior notifaction to myself. If they require the use of the restrooms, they must get the permission of one of the coaches. This is for saftey reasons as well as allowing us to know where the swimmers are in case we need to make a last minute change to our line-up. Please do not presume your swimmer is done for the day once their final scheduled event has been swum. We may have to make a last minute change.

Also during this time, they should be paying attenion to and cheering on their teammates. So please, no toys, games, cards etc. I-Pods and books are fine.

Final Notes

I have been asked by Bethpage Pool Maintenace to enforce a few rules

• Please make sure that all swimmers are dry and dressed before entering the stands.
• Food & Drink: By rule, there should be no food and drink in the pool area. If you do bring any in, please be sure to dispose of it. There are garbage pails at either end of the pool.
• Swimmer Safety: We had two unfortunate incidents this past week, whereby two of our swimmers were injured. I will be speaking with them as a group on Monday, but I ask you to also emphasize with them that they cannot roughhouse on the pool deck. It can be very dangerous.

Looking forward to the second half of the season.

Coach Carroll (Kevin)