hi Poolsharks!

Thank you everyone for making last evening come together for our team to compete at Winding Vista.  

During our team talks both yesterday before the meet, and today during our 'wooden deck' talks, we spoke about the importance of our character on deck matching the excellence of our character in the water (field, classroom, stage and beyond).  I was very thankful to hear good news from our Bullpens last evening that our listening and respect for others has improved from last week.  

Thank you to all of our parent volunteers throughout the season, including at each of our meets and this morning. This morning - our parent volunteers fast & furiously organized all of the ribbons and speeding bullets. Our 9-18's received these items this AM, while our 6U's and 7-8's will celebrate speeding bullets tomorrow (Thurs) morning. Ribbons (and speeding bullets from previous weeks) 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). 

Meet Data:

Last night our swimmers achieved 173 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.

IM tough! We have had ~ 20 swimmers so far this season, 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!  

Did we win? Some of the kids were wondering if we won or lost last evening - the score was 366 (Vipers) to 340 (Poolsharks). We had more kids competing than Winding Vista 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 have discussed this season 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!

We have updated our Jaw Droppers (time improvement), Top Chomp (high point), and Top 11 times on our site HERE.  (Meet results & speeding bullets are also posted there under the WV meet signup).  

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 & black spirit / IM / attendance caps, swimmer of the week cups, and beyond, all possible. Thank you all very much!

We also have an Apple Watch that was turned into us last night, if you are missing this, please let me know and we can get it back to you!

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

- Beth