Greetings all! Wow, this is my second post this week. I guess lack of school gives me lots of free time! Anyway, I just checked on the entries for the GTAC Ohio Open, and from all sites, we have 1 swimmer entered. I know that this meet has cut times, and many of the swimmers on the team are not eligible to swim, but for those of us that are, we would like to take a big group to the meet. So if you are able to, please consider attending this meet. Entries close on Direct Athletics December 28, so you need to get to that soon!
That's all I have for now. See you at the pool!
Coach Matt
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Holy Cow!
So I know its been a long time (and I feel that whenever I update this, I say the exact same thing!), but I guess I'm just not so quick at getting to this. But anyway, as Laura Watson has pointed out, it's been way too long... and so much has happened... so here it goes.
After sending off the high school swimmers to their respective swim seasons, the age group swimmers have been swimming amazingly fast. We swam very well at the meet a few of us attended in Ft. Wayne, IN, and also at the Shaker Shark Invitational. The only thing I am going to specifically mention from either of those meets is the 11-12 200 Free Relay which set a new team record in a time trial at the end of the meet. The relay of Amber Kovach, Natalie Klug, Rachel Zarlinski, and Iman Eulinberg beat the USC team record by a second with a time of 1:45.42. Amber led off in a lifetime best of 24.46, which qualified her for Sectionals which is an amazing feat for a 12 year old. The other three girls all had lifetime best splits on the relay as well.
December 18-20, we were in Pittsburgh, PA for the Xmas Meet. All I can say is wow! This was an incredibly fast meet, most events needing a AAAA time to place in the top 3. I am very proud to say that our USC representatives added to the quality of the meet. Amber made finals (top 8) in all but one event she swam. She also set new team records in the 50, 100, and 200 freestyle; 50, 100, and 200 backstroke; and the 50 and 100 butterfly. She also won the 50 fly by over a second! She posted times in the 100 back and 100 fly that will allow her to swim these events at sectionals as bonus events. Needless to say, Amber swam very well! But she is not the only one... Jordan Delgross (or Delweirdo if you read her swim cap) made her AA time in the 200 free. She took her first 50 out very fast, maybe a little too fast, but she was able to hold on to drop 3 seconds and get the AA cut. Emma Meyer, who swims at Orange, also swam very fast. She made finals in the 100 Fly, 50 Fly, and 100 Free. She dropped from a 1:17 to a 1:13 in the 100 Fly on Sunday, and her comment to me after she swam the 1:13 in finals was "I wasn't ready." If that was swimming "not ready," maybe we all need to take a page from young Emma's book! Scottie Bowman, also an Orange swimmer, lowered his own team records in the 100 Back and the 50 Fly. He swam both of those in finals, as well as the 100 Fly. Iman Eulinberg, Grace Ferry, Michelle Leahy, and Kingsley Bowen all swam very well also. I was very pleased with how everyone swam. It was a long weekend, but definitely worth it! I was proud to be the coach on deck!
Well, that brings us to today. Maybe I won't wait so long to post next time...or maybe I will ;)
See you at the pool!
Coach Matt
After sending off the high school swimmers to their respective swim seasons, the age group swimmers have been swimming amazingly fast. We swam very well at the meet a few of us attended in Ft. Wayne, IN, and also at the Shaker Shark Invitational. The only thing I am going to specifically mention from either of those meets is the 11-12 200 Free Relay which set a new team record in a time trial at the end of the meet. The relay of Amber Kovach, Natalie Klug, Rachel Zarlinski, and Iman Eulinberg beat the USC team record by a second with a time of 1:45.42. Amber led off in a lifetime best of 24.46, which qualified her for Sectionals which is an amazing feat for a 12 year old. The other three girls all had lifetime best splits on the relay as well.
December 18-20, we were in Pittsburgh, PA for the Xmas Meet. All I can say is wow! This was an incredibly fast meet, most events needing a AAAA time to place in the top 3. I am very proud to say that our USC representatives added to the quality of the meet. Amber made finals (top 8) in all but one event she swam. She also set new team records in the 50, 100, and 200 freestyle; 50, 100, and 200 backstroke; and the 50 and 100 butterfly. She also won the 50 fly by over a second! She posted times in the 100 back and 100 fly that will allow her to swim these events at sectionals as bonus events. Needless to say, Amber swam very well! But she is not the only one... Jordan Delgross (or Delweirdo if you read her swim cap) made her AA time in the 200 free. She took her first 50 out very fast, maybe a little too fast, but she was able to hold on to drop 3 seconds and get the AA cut. Emma Meyer, who swims at Orange, also swam very fast. She made finals in the 100 Fly, 50 Fly, and 100 Free. She dropped from a 1:17 to a 1:13 in the 100 Fly on Sunday, and her comment to me after she swam the 1:13 in finals was "I wasn't ready." If that was swimming "not ready," maybe we all need to take a page from young Emma's book! Scottie Bowman, also an Orange swimmer, lowered his own team records in the 100 Back and the 50 Fly. He swam both of those in finals, as well as the 100 Fly. Iman Eulinberg, Grace Ferry, Michelle Leahy, and Kingsley Bowen all swam very well also. I was very pleased with how everyone swam. It was a long weekend, but definitely worth it! I was proud to be the coach on deck!
Well, that brings us to today. Maybe I won't wait so long to post next time...or maybe I will ;)
See you at the pool!
Coach Matt
Monday, November 2, 2009
It's November already
Hello USC!
I can't believe it, but it is already November! Where does the time go? This week our high school swimmers leave us as they start their season, so good luck to everyone! You are all ready to have great seasons. The start of November also means that we are going to step it up a bit at the advanced practices. I know we have been working hard, but we are going to work even harder so that we are ready to swim fast come Champs season in March! We have a few meets this month, starting with the Odd-Age meet in Strongsville this weekend. I will be at the meet on Saturday morning and all day Sunday. The week after that, we have a breakout meet in Solon on Sunday the 15th. The last meet of November is in Ft. Wayne Indiana the 20th - 22nd. I always love travel meets so I am really looking forward to some fast swimming at this meet!
If you plan to go to the Pittsburgh meet in December, please get your entries in ASAP. We need to send in the entries very soon to make sure we get in. This is a fast meet and you need an "A" time in most events to qualify.
That's all for now. Keep up the hard work and I'll see you on the pool deck!
Coach Matt
I can't believe it, but it is already November! Where does the time go? This week our high school swimmers leave us as they start their season, so good luck to everyone! You are all ready to have great seasons. The start of November also means that we are going to step it up a bit at the advanced practices. I know we have been working hard, but we are going to work even harder so that we are ready to swim fast come Champs season in March! We have a few meets this month, starting with the Odd-Age meet in Strongsville this weekend. I will be at the meet on Saturday morning and all day Sunday. The week after that, we have a breakout meet in Solon on Sunday the 15th. The last meet of November is in Ft. Wayne Indiana the 20th - 22nd. I always love travel meets so I am really looking forward to some fast swimming at this meet!
If you plan to go to the Pittsburgh meet in December, please get your entries in ASAP. We need to send in the entries very soon to make sure we get in. This is a fast meet and you need an "A" time in most events to qualify.
That's all for now. Keep up the hard work and I'll see you on the pool deck!
Coach Matt
Monday, October 12, 2009
Sprint Spectacular and week of 10-12
Hello everyone!
What a great first meet of the season! Best times and records were shattered all weekend! It would take an hour for me to write all the best times out, and I am not about to do that, so I would like to just say congrats to everyone who swam. We swam really well, but we have alot to work on still. I will mention some of these in a minute, but first I want to recognize a few people for their performances.
What a great first meet of the season! Best times and records were shattered all weekend! It would take an hour for me to write all the best times out, and I am not about to do that, so I would like to just say congrats to everyone who swam. We swam really well, but we have alot to work on still. I will mention some of these in a minute, but first I want to recognize a few people for their performances.
- Matt and Michael Flinchbaugh continued where they left off this summer, both crushing their best times from last season in pretty much everything they swam. Between the two of them, they dropped at least a collective 30 seconds among all their races. Good work!
- Marissa Henderson had a couple best times, but she swam some new events and didn't shy away from the longer events. She is new to the 11-12 age group, but she is not afraid to swim the 200 IM and the 100 fly in the open age group events, racing 17 and 18 year olds. Hats off to you Marissa!
- Michelle Leahy achieved her first "A" time by posting a time of 1:21.74 in her 100 Breast! Great job!
- Amber Kovach set 4 team records (50 Free, 50 Back, 50 Fly, and 100 Fly) as well as breaking a 12 year old district record, taking down both the swimmer and event records for the 50 fly! Her time of 27.00 broke the team record by 1.85 seconds, the district swimmer record by 0.50 seconds, and the district event record by 0.28 seconds. Her time also would have tied her for 20th in the nation among all 12 year olds last year!
Though we swam well, we need to focus on some of the smaller things at practice. Too many of us are breathing the first stroke off the wall on our starts and turns in freestyle and butterfly. We need to be more disciplined in practice and not allow ourselves to do this and it will carry over into the meets. Also, our kicking is great, but we need to keep working the legs in every swim we do in practice. This will only help us get better.
Don't forget to sign up for meets by the posted deadline on the USC website. If you are having difficulties with Direct Athletics or have other questions about meets, let me know. I will do what I can to answer your questions and solve your problems.
That's all for today. See you at practice!
Coach Matt
Monday, October 5, 2009
Week of 10-5
Hello everyone!
A big thanks to everyone who partook in the Swim-a-thon this past Saturday! I had a great time and it was good to see all of you there. Congrats to all who made the 200 lengths. I know Colin Martin made all 200 and that is definately the most he has done in that short of a time period by at least 80 lengths. Good work!
This week is a normal week of practice. For the advanced group, we are going to have a slightly less intense week than last week. That doesn't mean that it will be easy, but it will not be quite as hard as last week. For the intro group, I want to keep working on both flip turns and open turn which we started concentrating on last week. We looked pretty good for the limited work we did on them, but there is still much room for improvement! Meets start this coming weekend, so I also want to work some dives and starts with both groups so we can look good and swim fast at our first meet.
As you may have noticed, we have a new coach on deck! I completely forgot to introduce him on here last Thursday when I last posted, but I would like to officially welcome John Sommerville to USC! John is a native of the metro-Detroit Area, much like myself, and just graduated last May from Case Western. He is currently searching for a job in marketing (I think!) and will be with us at least through the end of 2009. He will actually not be at practice all week because he is in Chicago for some interviews and networking. An interesting fact: John and I coached for the same team in Michigan! I coached at the Beverly Hills Athletic Club (BHAC) for 5 summers between 2002 and 2006. After I left, John filled my void for the summer of 2007. That just goes to show how small of a world it actually is.
Two last bits of information...
1) Don't forget to collect all of your pledges and donations for the Swim-a-thon and turn them in. You can bring them to practice and I will lock them up until Brian Mann picks them up (or I deliver them to him).
2) Apparel order forms should be out this week. Michelle Delgross told me on Saturday that she hoped to have them at practice by today, so hopefully we have those soon.
That's all for now, see you at the pool!
Coach Matt
A big thanks to everyone who partook in the Swim-a-thon this past Saturday! I had a great time and it was good to see all of you there. Congrats to all who made the 200 lengths. I know Colin Martin made all 200 and that is definately the most he has done in that short of a time period by at least 80 lengths. Good work!
This week is a normal week of practice. For the advanced group, we are going to have a slightly less intense week than last week. That doesn't mean that it will be easy, but it will not be quite as hard as last week. For the intro group, I want to keep working on both flip turns and open turn which we started concentrating on last week. We looked pretty good for the limited work we did on them, but there is still much room for improvement! Meets start this coming weekend, so I also want to work some dives and starts with both groups so we can look good and swim fast at our first meet.
As you may have noticed, we have a new coach on deck! I completely forgot to introduce him on here last Thursday when I last posted, but I would like to officially welcome John Sommerville to USC! John is a native of the metro-Detroit Area, much like myself, and just graduated last May from Case Western. He is currently searching for a job in marketing (I think!) and will be with us at least through the end of 2009. He will actually not be at practice all week because he is in Chicago for some interviews and networking. An interesting fact: John and I coached for the same team in Michigan! I coached at the Beverly Hills Athletic Club (BHAC) for 5 summers between 2002 and 2006. After I left, John filled my void for the summer of 2007. That just goes to show how small of a world it actually is.
Two last bits of information...
1) Don't forget to collect all of your pledges and donations for the Swim-a-thon and turn them in. You can bring them to practice and I will lock them up until Brian Mann picks them up (or I deliver them to him).
2) Apparel order forms should be out this week. Michelle Delgross told me on Saturday that she hoped to have them at practice by today, so hopefully we have those soon.
That's all for now, see you at the pool!
Coach Matt
Thursday, October 1, 2009
A long time coming...
Hello USC!
Its been awhile since I posted anything, but here we go.
1) Swim-a-thon: A reminder that the USC Swim-a-thon is this Saturday, Oct. 1, at the TFC. It starts at 6PM and runs until midnight. You are welcome to come at any time, but we are asking that some of the older kids come later in the night and let the younger kids have the earlier sessions. If you can only make it earlier, that is fine, you are welcome to swim then. Get out there and get some last minute donations! The prizes for top fundraisers were sent out last night. Here is a recap:
Its been awhile since I posted anything, but here we go.
1) Swim-a-thon: A reminder that the USC Swim-a-thon is this Saturday, Oct. 1, at the TFC. It starts at 6PM and runs until midnight. You are welcome to come at any time, but we are asking that some of the older kids come later in the night and let the younger kids have the earlier sessions. If you can only make it earlier, that is fine, you are welcome to swim then. Get out there and get some last minute donations! The prizes for top fundraisers were sent out last night. Here is a recap:
- Overall top fundraiser on USC will receive a new iPod Nano with video capability. I'm jealous cause I want this!
- Top fundraiser in each age group will receive a $25 gift card to Target!
- Each swimmer participating have a chance to win a raffle prize
- USA Swimming provides awards for reaching certain fundraising milestones. Every participant gets a certificate. Everyone who completes 100-200 lengths gets a pin. If you raise $500-$749.99, you get a USA Swimming T-shirt. If you raise $750-$999.99, you will receive a USA Swimming towel. If you raise over $1000, you will receive a USA Swimming bag!
The money raised from the Swim-a-thon goes to support USA Swimming and USC. Get out there and get people to sponsor you!
2) For those in the advanced group, if you have not yet gotten a pair of tennis shoes to wear in the pool, please do so. If there is 1 piece of equipment that you get and need (besides cap, goggles and swim suit), it is shoes! We are focusing a lot on our legs right now (as if you haven't noticed!) and kicking with shoes on helps to strengthen the small stabilizing muscles as well at the large muscles. It is also impossible to kick improperly with shoes and move forward. So please, go to Target or Payless and get a $10 pair of shoes to wear in the pool if you don't have an old pair of tennis shoes at home.
We have been doing a great job at practice. We are swimming very well and we need to keep it up! See you at practice!
-Coach Matt
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Weekly Updates
Hello swimmers and families,
We are one week down and I am excited about what I have seen! First off we have great numbers. I love when there are lots of swimmers in the water! Also, we look pretty good in the water. I couldn't ask for much more as a coach.
I want to apologize for missing half the practices last week and thank Jen and Roderick for stepping in to cover for me. For those who haven't heard, my grandfather has not been in the greatest of health and he went into the hospital last Monday. I had Tuesday and Wednesday off of work, so I flew out to Chicago to see him. While I was there I realized that I had to be at Walsh for mini-class night where I got to meet my students' parents on Thursday night. Overall, a hectic week for me! But I made it through and am back and ready to coach everynight. :)
A couple things...
We are one week down and I am excited about what I have seen! First off we have great numbers. I love when there are lots of swimmers in the water! Also, we look pretty good in the water. I couldn't ask for much more as a coach.
I want to apologize for missing half the practices last week and thank Jen and Roderick for stepping in to cover for me. For those who haven't heard, my grandfather has not been in the greatest of health and he went into the hospital last Monday. I had Tuesday and Wednesday off of work, so I flew out to Chicago to see him. While I was there I realized that I had to be at Walsh for mini-class night where I got to meet my students' parents on Thursday night. Overall, a hectic week for me! But I made it through and am back and ready to coach everynight. :)
A couple things...
- All swimmers must have a water bottle on deck with them behind thier lane. No one realizes how much swimmers sweat while they swim becasue they are in water, but it is very easy to get dehydrated while swimming. I am going to look into some USC water bottles so we can represent our team both at practices and meets. I'll give more details on that at a later date
- Swimmers in the advanced group must bring an old pair of tennis shoes with them to practice. We will be using them (starting today) for kicking and leg strengthening. Please run them through the washing machine before wearing them in the pool, though, so we keep the dirt that may have accumulated in them over the years out of the pool!
- The advanced group swimmers will also be using hand paddles quite often this season. We have a very limited supply of them at the TFC, so if you have your own, don't forget them! The same goes with fins.
That's all I have for now. See everyone at the pool!
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