I also want to take this opportunity to thank Ellen Fishkin for another great Banquet last night. Brad and Ann Newsom also deserve our gratitude for bringing a generator and hooking it up so we could have our DJ and slideshow (and FANS!). It was a very hot, but fun night!

We had our final A meet of the season yesterday. Amongst all of the hula girls (and guys), palm trees and the smoking volcano, you could find the WINNING TEAM! Yes, the final score was Westleigh 439 – Flower Valley 353! Way to go Westleigh!

A BIG thank you to all that helped out at this morning’s Rock-n-Roll mini meet. Such a fun event for our smallest swimmers and it couldn’t happen without tons of help. The Westleigh spirit was apparent in the many, many parents and older swimmers helping out that didn’t even have a swimmer in the meet. Amazing. I want to especially thank our Mini Meet Chairs who did an amazing job (again!) bringing all of this together. Thank you to Sally Schmalz, Lynn Grainger and Lori Kelman – you guys ROCK!

PLEASE NOTE – The last regular practice of the season is Wednesday morning. Superstars is Wednesday night and then after that there will only be practice for those swimmers that are in Divisionals.

There will be one final social before Divisionals on Friday night and then the Divisionals meet is Saturday morning at Flower Valley.

If you have a Divisionals swimmer and would be willing to help us out with the Divisionals breakfast on Friday, please email me ASAP.

Today, we went to Upper County for the A Relay Carnival. What a fun meet to watch! Our swimmers and parents screamed themselves hoarse with all the cheering as the team swam hard all morning long. If you didn’t stay til the end, you missed the highlight of the meet – the parent/coaches relay! Our team was represented in fine style by Sally Schmalz, Jack Devine, Emily Bolek and Chris Emr. I must say that Jack rocked the speedo and Sally made my day when she heard her split time and announced “I got an All-Star time!” Chris and Emily did well too – but we are used to that! I want to thank all the parents that were so willing to participate – I got no grumpy answers at all when I was asking for volunteers. Our Westleigh spirit of fun and teamwork is really something special.

On Tuesday, some of our swimmers have qualified to swim in the Coaches Long Course Invitational meet. According to current seedings, Westleigh will be represented by Jeremy Chung (breast and IM), Sawyer Hazel (fly and IM), Claudia Gibson (free and fly), Peter Bajorek (IM and alternate in free), Andrew Gibson (free and back), Nikos Tragotsis (back), Brittany Dickerson (alternate in IM), Thomas Finn (back and alternate in free), Matt Gibson (back and alternate in IM), Emily Bolek (alternate in IM).

Wednesday is our B Meet at Darnestown – Wear your tie-dye!

Friday is our fabulous Hawaiian Social. You won’t want to miss it!

Saturday is our final A meet at home against Flower Valley. Get out your grass skirts and tacky shirts for our Hawaiian Theme !

Sunday, July 18 is our Mini Meet! Please sign up to help out at this fun meet for the littlest swimmers!

Please be sure to sign up to help at any meet your child is swimming in. Also, be on the lookout for Banquet forms to show up in your family folder soon.

I hope everyone had a fun and safe 4th of July! We started the holiday weekend with our 3rd A Meet of the season at RMSC against the Rockville Rays. The final score was Rockville 528 – Westleigh 261. I continue to be impressed with how our kids just keep on getting faster and faster, and smiling the whole way. Our swimmers achieved tons of all-star times and 67 personal best times at this meet, and had fun doing it. Way to go Westleigh!

We are on a roll with the record breaking! Congratulations to the following who broke team records:

Andrew Gibson holds the new record for the Boys 13-14 50 Free with a time of 26.14

Andrew Gibson also broke his own record in the Boys 13-14 100 IM with a time of 1:04.96

Again this week, Both Matt Gibson and Thomas Finn broke the record in Boys 15-18 100 back. Thomas holds the new record with a time of 1:01.49

And, our Boys Senior 200 Medley Relay Team broke their own record with a time of 1:55.25. Congrats to Thomas Finn, Eric Woodard, Matt Gibson and Chris Emr!

On Saturday, we hosted the Tilden Woods Dolphins for our second A Meet. Based on previous times, we were expected to lose by around 200 points. Coach Jeremy told the kids to do their best and use this stiff competition to push them toward their personal best times. Our swimmers did just that – I saw many exhausted faces when they got out of the pool. They pushed themselves and many were pleasantly surprised by just how fast they went! Tons of personal best times were created yesterday. Those are victories that matter. The final score was Tilden Woods 457 – Westleigh 332. All those personal bests reduced our predicted loss from a 200 point difference to just 125 points. We gave them a fight they didn’t expect, and that is great!

History was made yesterday when our Boys 200m Medley Relay Team broke both the Pool and Team Records with a time of 1:56.28 in their race yesterday! An amazing race! Congratulations to:

Thomas Finn, Eric Woodard, Matt Gibson and Chris Emr

WAY TO GO BOYS!!!

40 All-Star Times were achieved yesterday as well. Congratulations to:

Sawyer Hazel, Jeremy Chung, Claudia Gibson, Erich Mayne, Julia Wang, Andrew Gibson, Peter Bajorek, Brittany Dickerson, Thomas Finn, Matt Gibson, Chris Emr, Nikos Tragotsis, Jason Hu, Emily Bolek and Jacob Weiss.

Other News

There are still 7 seats available on the Kings Dominion Trip on July 6. This is such a fun trip (and such a great deal!), we hate to have any empty seats. If your family would like to go, please sign up on the bulleitn board ASAP.

The theme for week four has been changed from International to Formal. Get out your old prom dresses, tux, and that hideous bridesmaid dress you wanted to burn…time to put them to good use!
Next week’s theme is Patriotic – get out your red, white and blue!

PLEASE be sure your child signs up for their B Meet events no later than Tuesday morning practice. And parents, log onto signupgenius.com to choose your job for the meet…don’t make us come after you

Yesterday we hosted the Upper County Dolphins for our first A Meet of the season. We knew that they are a very strong team so we were thrilled to be ahead in the scoring at half time, but the final score was Upper County 403.5, Westleigh 384.5. The Barracudas fought hard, earning many personal best times and a total of 47 All-Star Times. I think that anyone who was there will agree that the best part of the day was seeing all the smiling, cheering faces throughout the entire meet – on both the young and “not-so young” faces of the swimmers, parents and coaches. Way to Go ‘Cudas!!

Congratulations to the following swimmers who earned All-Star Times yesterday:

Claudia Gibson, Sawyer Hazel, Jeremy Chung, Andrew Gibson, Peter Bajorek, Brittany Dickerson, Sophia Hu, Matt Gibson, Thomas Finn, Chris Emr, Emily Bolek, Nikos Tragotsis, Erich Mayne, Jason Hu, Julia Wang, Robert Bastos, Andrew Scher, Jacob Weiss and Liz Dickerson.

We had two very impressive (and EXCITING!) relay wins yesterday. Congratulations to:

Thomas Finn, Eric Woodard, Matt Gibson and Chris Emr took first place in the 200m Medley Relay

Kevin Scher, Sawyer Hazel, Andrew Gibson and Erich Mayne took first place in the 14 & Under 175m Free Graduated Relay

A few reminders: Many of us were looking quite snazzy in our Barracuda Blue on Saturday! Please contact Lisa Woodard (woodard4@comcast.net) if you would like to order a Westleigh parent shirt. The final order will go in on Saturday, June 26.

Our first B Meet is this Wednesday night at home against Manchester Farm. Please be sure to sign your swimmers up on the sheet attached to our team bulletinboard by the end of Tuesday morning practice. If your child is participating in this meet, you must also log onto signupgenius.com to choose your volunteer position for the evening. Don’t forget to dress for the “SPORTS” theme!

As of yesterday afternoon, there were 2 spaces still left for the Kings Dominion Trip. Payment is due no later than Monday, June 21 for those that have signed up. Please put your check for $35 per person in the HAZEL folder. If you haven’t paid by then, I will remove your name from the list to allow someone else to sign up.

Ideally, at least one parent from each family will join us. If this is not possible, each child under age 13 must have a chaperone who is at least 16 years old – this chaperone must be responsible for the child for the duration of the trip. If you are signing your under 13 child up to go, you must note who the responsible guardian is and they must also be paid in full within 48 hours of sign up.

We will meet at Westleigh at 7:00 a.m. with the bus departing at 7:30 a.m. sharp. We will leave King’s Dominion at 8 p.m. and arrive back at Westleigh around 9:30 p.m.

Families that wish to drive themselves or carpool with another family may do so. Just contact me to purchase tickets (still $35) rather than putting your name on the sign up sheet. I will also have parking passes available for $8 per car. There are a limited number of tickets available.

Everybody needs to get to as many practices as possible this week. If you are not swimming in the A meet this week ( your coaches will tell you who is swimming during this week), the first B meet is just around the corner AND a strong practice session improves everyone.

This is our event to time each of our swimmers in each stroke as a baseline for the season. Time Trials is run just like a regular dual meet so it is a great chance to get swimmers (and parents) back in the swing of things before the start of the season. All swimmers (not pre-team) should attend this event. If it is impossible for a swimmer to attend Time Trials, the absence must be ok’d by Coach Jeremy in advance and arrangements made to be timed separately.