Well, after eight long but exciting days on the road, we are finally home and I finally have an internet connection! There's a lot to report from BC AAA Provincials so I'll try not to miss anyone.
Day 1
We had possibly the worst first day of preliminaries ever on Thursday. Everyone seemed to be sluggish and not moving very well in the morning (except you Adriaan!!!) We did manage to squeeze three finals out of the session however with Andrea Gilbert placing 8th in the 15 and over girls 100 free and 7th in the 100 backstroke. Alec chipped in with a 7th place finish in the 100 freestyle for 11 and 12 boys, narrowly missing his best time from VIR's. In the finals that night, Alec finished 7th right on his best time with a 1:08.6 while Andrea picked up a lifetime best time of 1:02.3 in the 100, placing 5th while her time of 1:11.6 placed her 6th in the backstoke final. Our relays were spectacular that night with both the girls and boys teams dropping over four seconds off of their entry time. The boys were 1:53.5 (Brock - 27.2, Tyson - 26.4, Adriaan 28.9 and Alec 31.0) while the girls were 2:03.o (Amberle - 31.0, Kirsten - 29.9, Aven 30.6 and Marisa 31.5.) A good day considering how we swam and that our three finals was only one less than we had at the entire sc meet in February. However, the best was still to come. Finally that night we were able to celebrate Amberle's birthday with cake and fun. Happy 14th Amberle!
Day 2
We were definately better in the morning session on Friday but were still recovering somewhat from our big travel and our bruised ego's from Thursday. However, we were able to pick up three more finals on the second day of the meet. Andrea Gilbert was able to qualify for her third final of the meet, posting a 50 freestyle time of 28.7 in the prelims. Marisa Gorjeu emerged on day two as a threat with a 2:51.7 in the 200 fly prelims for 11 and 12 girls, placing 3rd after the heats and dropping four seconds off of her lifetime best. Alec Page was up to the task as well, picking up a fourth place prelims finish in the 11 and 12 boys 200 fly with a time of 3:00.04, a best time by three seconds. Alisha Clark got her meet going well with a best time of 11:26 in the 800 free during the break. In finals that night, it was the flyers up first and Marisa Gorjeu lived up to lofty expectations, picking up CRKW's first provincial medal in three years with a bronze medal in the 200 fly with a time of 2:50.7. It was an extremely exciting race with Marisa taking the race out in 1:19 and hanging on for the bronze. Alec Page followed right after Marisa and was in the race for the medals right until the touch, finishing fourth with a time of 2:58.7, his first time under 3:00. His last 50 was the second fastest in the race but just ran out of pool at the end. Finally it was left up to Andrea to swim her 50 and, with an excellent start and race plan, she was able to drop .25 from her lifetime best time and captured the bronze medal with a time of 28.30, just getting outtouched at the end for silver - our second medal of the night. On Friday it was the girls turn to swim a relay; the 4 x 100 freestyle relay. Their time of 4:34.0 was again way under their entry time and their splits (Amberle - 1:09.5, Kirsten - 1:07.1, Aven - 1:07.9 and Marisa - 1:09.5) were all very strong. We were all feeling better about our day and were able to celebrate a bit on Friday night with our strong performances on the day.
Day 3
Expecting some great performances on Saturday am after our record setting night, we were caught a little off guard on Saturday with the 200 Free, 200 Back combo as some of the 200's were a little soft and weren't attacked the way they should have been. Aven and Adriaan came away with some good 200 backs (Adriaan 2:33.6 and Aven 2:49.5) and Adriaan pulled out a good 200 free but overall the swims were a little disapointing up until then. Brock and Kirsten changed that with excellent morning swims in the 100 breaststroke, Brock swimming a best time of 1:13.01 and placing 4th while Kirsten went into finals with a time of 1:22.8 in third place. Brock, happy with his 100 breast time went into the 1500 freestyle with a good race plan and came away with a 26 second improvement over his best time and the fastest time of the morning with one heat remaining to swim in that nights finals. In the finals that night, only 6 out of the fastest 8 swimmers beat Brock, giving him a 7th place finish in the event. In the other finals that night, we weren't done with the medals as Kirsten Rowbotham decided to take matters into her own hands and make her own good luck. Splitting 38.5 at the 50, a personal best time, she swam down her two main rivals from Island Swimming and beat them both, finishing with a time of 1:21.1 placing second only to powerhouse breaststroker Bronwyn Pasloski. Brock also had a monster swim, still placing 4th but picking up a time of 1:11.6 in the finals to destroy his best time from the morning. Alec was awarded a finals appearance in the 200 free after a scratch and placed 8th in a time of 2:29.1, a best time and two seconds better than his morning time of 2:31. Tyson and Andrea were given second swims with B final appearances in the 200 backstroke and 2oo freestyle respectively. Tyson was a best time in the finals with a time of 2:27. 7 and swam a very smart, well thought out race, moving up to 11th. Andrea ended up 11th as well, struggling slightly on the last 50 but hanging on for a hard fought 2:19. Our guys relay was great that night as well. Their time of 4:07.0 (Brock - 59.5, Tyson - 58.8, Adriaan - 1:03.3 and Alec - 1:09.6) was four seconds under their seed time and was very competitive in the event. Our third medal of the night was a real highlight of the day going into the last day of the competition.
Day 4
Well...we showed up to swim! 200 Breast heats were first and Kirsten served notice that the 100 was not her only event. Her time of 2:57.7 was a LC best time and close to her converted time of 2:56 from her SC swim in February. It was also good enough to place her second in the event going into that nights finals. Brock, obviously inspired by the great swim, was able to drop two seconds off of his best time with a swim of 2:37. which placed him third going into finals. 100 Fly was up next and this was a featured event for our team with some good flyers getting ready to show their stuff. Aven and Marisa both posted strong swims (1:15.8 and 1:15.9 respectively) and both qualified for the final in 5th and 6th. Alec dropped four more seconds off of his best time and qualified third for the final with a time of 1:17.0. Brock was able to swim a good 100 fly (1:05.6) and place in the B Final for that nights swims. Adriaan had the swim of the morning, taking 19 seconds off of his personal best time of 3:25 with a swim of 3:06 in the heats, a very strong swim. In the finals that night, we new going in that we were only 6 points behind the team from Westbank (Kelowna) and had to swim well to make up the difference. Well, we did that and more. Kirsten got us rolling with what was the most exciting race of the whole meet, not just for our swimmers but of the whole meet! On the first 50 meters, Kirsten went out 39.4, about half of a second behind Pasloski and about half a second ahead of Fyfe and McEvoy. At the 10o, Kirsten went with Pasloski while McEvoy followed in third and Fyfe fell off the lead into fourth. On the third 50 both Fyfe and McEvoy made a move while Pasloski started to struggle. On the last 50, with 10 meters to swim, the four swimmers were deadlocked across the middle four lanes with Rowbotham and Paskloski trying desperately to hold onto the lead while Fyfe started to move away from the field. The whole complex went crazy with cheering and screaming for teammates and friends. In the end, Fyfe was too strong and surged ahead for the win in 2:51.73 while the other three girls all touched at exactly the same time. The whole complex turned to the clock to see who had taken the touch and, in the end, by a mere .02 of a second Kirsten has stolen the silver from the two other girls. The formerly unbeatable Bronwyn Pasloski was third and, only .01 behind Pasloski was Fyfe. The four girls were awarded a standing ovation at the end of the race for the excitement it provided in the first race of the night. Brock wasn't about to be outdone though and went out super fast in his 200 breaststroke final in 1:14. He stayed with the second place swimmer all the way through the third 50 and, although he struggled with the pace on the last 50, his time of 2:35.3 was good enough for bronze and only .07 over his western National Standard. Rowbotham had narrowly missed hers as well by less than .3. Preston and Gorjeu were 6th and 8th respectively with best times in the 100 fly final for girls while Alec dropped another second from his lifetime best and swam a 1:16.0 for fourth overall. Just when we thought the excitement was over, the girls and guys both had Medley relays to swim and their performances were outstanding again. The guys were 2:07.4 (Adriaan 33.9 (Backstroke), Brock 33.6 (Breaststroke), Alec 33.5 (Butterfly) and Tyson 26.3 (Freestyle)) and the girls smashed the existing club record by three seconds with a 2:16.75. Their splits of 37.3 (Alisha - Backstroke), 36.9 (Kirsten - Breaststroke), 32.0 (Aven - Butterfly) and 30.4 (Amberle - Freestyle) was not only good enough for the record but tied them for 7th overall, our first relay points of the meet. On the team side...we crushed two more teams on the last night to move into the top 20, which was our team's goal at the start of the season. Our final placing of 19th overall is our best in over three years. Way to go swimmers!
That's enough typing! Club Nationals start on Thursday, July 21st from Winnipeg.
