Well we have reached the end of the first semester and a little bit beyond the halfway point of the swim and dive season. This year we approached our midseason meet a little different applying a shave and taper to the midseason to see what we could achieve. Our midseason meet this year was at the Rochester Invite with high levels of competition including St. Thomas, St. Cloud State, UWL, and UWEC to name a few. We did very well, placing fourth at the meet, but perhaps more importantly getting some tapered swims under our belt preparing us for the feeling of swimming fast at the end of the season. If there is one thing that we don’t have enough opportunities to do in our sport, it’s competing at our peak abilities, which typically happens once a year. The goal of our midseason taper is then to double the number of opportunities we have to swim at our peak, allowing for more tapered swims and events, and potentially better swims at the end of the season.
We had lots of great swims including many lifetime bests. As a team we had 65 season best swims (nearly 100% of the swims we had were season bests). Some of the highlights include Ethan Huber making an impact on the freshman top five times list notching two all time top freshman swims: 3rd on the 200 Free list (1:45.40) and 5th on the 400 IM list (4:19.00). These swims knocked Kip Winden off the 200 Free top 5 and Torri Ahlberg off the 400 IM top five. While both were solid swims, it is my belief that Ethan will continue to improve in those events for the end of the season and could expect to move up on both those lists yet again. Mitchell Dockendorf had a huge swim in the 100 Breaststroke, notching an all-time Johnnies top five swim with a time of 58.44 (knocking off teammate Eli Greenblat from the list). While not his typical event, he is trying something new, and finding some immediate success. I’m also sure that he has more to figure out in this event and could drop more time at the end of the season.
Our divers also had a great meet, with Jack Grabinski leading the way with two 2nd place finishes in the diving events. It should be noted that Jack lost by only a small margin on each board and it was to a multiple-time All American Diver from UWEC. He was in great competition and is certainly continuing to build on what he has already accomplished with this season.
With the first half of the season done, now we turn our attention to training trip. This year we will be traveling to the Florida Keys. We will spend 7 days in the warmth of the keys focusing on preparing ourselves for the end of the season. With a large group heading down to Florida, we expect to build on the swims that we have had to this point of the season and continue to grow stronger and faster in January.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone in the Johnnie Swim and Dive family. I hope to see you all at the pool in January.