hi Poolsharks -

The coaches are very proud of our swimmers for their tough racing and being great teammates last night - such fantastic races all around by our Poolsharks, followed by in water high fives to their right and left.  

Thank you to all of our parent volunteers throughout the season, including last evening at the meet and this morning.  This morning - our parent volunteers fast & furiously organized all of the ribbons and speeding bullets.  We will hand out speeding bullets tomorrow (Thurs) morning, and ribbons can be picked up from the lifeguard area (please keep things neat and organized in appreciation of Maia & Clio Browne's family who put the ribbon boxes together for our team and for our parent volunteers who organize & stuff the ribbon boxes).  

I want to take a moment to thank each of our Venetian Sponsors - their generous support makes our team tshirts, celebration donuts, 3-6-9 swimmer commitment awards, updating equipment each season, pink & green spirit / IM caps, swimmer of the week cups, and  beyond, all possible.  Thank you all very much!

Meet Data:

Out of 425 individual races, our swimmers achieved 199 speeding bullets (best times).  My goodness!  Speeding bullets typically get harder to earn as the season goes along - this is something special to celebrate for your swimmer each time.

Records: 4 team records were broken last evening - Madison Deeb (13-14 girls) in the 50 fly & 100 IM (both held by Theresa Glasgow), and Greta Myers (15-18 girls) in the 50 fly & 100 IM (fly held by Coach Liv and IM held by Coach Jayla).  This morning, Jayla & Liv celebrated the moment with Greta.  

IM tough!  We had 20 swimmers earn a florescent green 'IM TOUGH' swim cap - these swimmers either swam the 100 IM for the first time (legally & earning a Heat 1 spot) or they earned a BEST time.  We are very proud of our IM tough kids!  (I am partial to IMers as this was my best and favorite event as a swimmer back in the day).  

Did we win?  Some of the kids were wondering if we won or lost last evening - the score was 409 (FIRE) to 297 (ICE).  We had more kids competing than Leafmore which can impact scoring, but the # of kids on a team typically does not impact winning or losing.  League scoring rules create intentional parity that allow small teams to compete with big teams - so that as long as you have 4 kids per age group, a team of 48 kids can beat a team of 480 kids.  We will be on both sides of the score as the season moves along, as schedules are set up by the league director so you typically compete against 2 teams ranked higher and 2 teams ranked lower, so most teams finish 3-2 or 2-3.  We discussed this morning how we will either WIN a meet or earn SECOND place, because as long as we do our best and race hard & we are great teammates with great sportsmanship - that is a podium finish!

Tomorrow (Thurs) we will have a special guest at Poolshark practice, from ~ 815 am to 1030 am.  USA National Team member, All American & NCAA champion for Harvard, GHSA State Champion for Paideia, American Record holder in the 200 free, and last but not least Poolshark record holder and ALUM, Dean Farris!  (also is known as Starfish Killian's uncle).  Dean will give a brief 'hello' to our Poolsharks at the beginning of each practice when we meet on the wooden deck, and then float from lane to lane to help kids with their skills.   I am excited and thankful for our Poolsharks to be in the presence of a real life superhero in Dean, who is also humble, gracious and a wonderful role model.

General Info & Reminders:

*Please check our website HERE for speeding bullets & results.

*Please remember to declare & volunteer signup HERE for next week's 2 home meets (Tues June 10 hosting Winding Vista Vipers and Thurs June 12 hosting Briarcliff/Sagamore makeup meet). Schedule next week - with the double meet - here is the plan:

Mon - regular AM practice

Tues - regular AM practice

Tues night - hosting Winding Vista

Wed - donut practice times

Thurs - regular AM practice

Thurs night - hosting Briarcliff/Sagmore & Senior Night #1 for Ani Painter (Decatur HS '25)

Fri - regular AM practice (no donuts, regular 815/9:00/10:00 start times)

Thats all for now - these last 3 weeks will feel like a whirlind and full of fun swimming!

Have Fun, Race Hard, Do Your Best, and Go Poolsharks!

- Beth

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