Good Afternoon Water Warriors,

I hope everyone had a wonderful Independence Day holiday. It was wonderful to see so many swim team families at the pool for the festivities. I can report that all Dad’s survived the relays (the Mom’s thrived as usual) and fun was had by all. I hope some of you were able to make it through the night to catch our first ever July 5th fireworks show this morning as well. Now, onto to the week at hand.

We have made it to the second half of the season. It’s all downhill from here. We got into the win column convincingly on Wednesday beating Kenwood by over 100 points. We move on this week to our last A dual meet of the season against Edgemoor at home. Then we have our first B meet on Thursday away at Manor. Finally the annual Squirt Gun meet is at Washington Golf on Saturday morning. With such a full week, let’s get to the meat and potatoes:

A Meet vs. Edgemoor Club

Tuesday, July 7th @ Arlington – 5:00PM Warm Up – 6:10PM Start – Theme: Western

We have another home dual meet on Tuesday against the newest A Division team in Edgemoor Club. We will look to keep our winning ways rolling and show them what a meet in A Division looks like. The bar will be set up and the buffet will open at 7:00PM and run through the end of the meet. The menu for the buffet will be diner comfort food. If you would like to see the menu and get registered early you can sign up here – Edgemoor Meet Buffet (signing up beforehand helps the staff with probable numbers so they can make sure to have food for everyone without having to waste food at the end of the night. So if you know you are going to get the buffet, go ahead and sign up early).

Please make sure to mark your swimmers availability by this evening so that we can get the lineup done in advance of meet day. The theme for Tuesday will be Western, so put on a 10-gallon hat, pull on some boots, and get ready to wrangle some Edgemoor dolphins. We will also be celebrating our graduating seniors for their Senior Night in between warm ups and the start of the meet tomorrow night. So make sure you have a good spot early to see off our wonderful cadre of graduating seniors: Dylan Crombe, Kate Douglas, Keaghan Fahle, Jack Fuqua, Paige McAeller, Delina Melles, Trevor Pickard, and Isabelle Vivarelli.

B Meet @ Manor Country Club

Thursday, July 9th – Warm Ups: 5:30PM – Meet Start: 6:00PM – Theme: Tropical

We make the trip out to Manor on Thursday (14901 Carrolton Rd, Rockville, MD) for our first B Meet. Since this is our first one, let me take a second to explain how we run these. B meets are open to all swim team members. Swimmers should only sign up for events they have not scored (top 3) in at any meet so far this year. Generally if you normally swim an event at A meets, you do not need to sign up for that event at a B meet. For those that swim a full slate of events at most A meets it is okay to take the night off for the B meet as well. Please make sure your swimmer’s availability is marked in Swimtopia prior to Tuesday night. While we do allow parental input on Swimtopia for B meets, we will likely need to make changes based on the space allowed in the meet. Even though it is a B meet, it will not be unlimited heats of everything and we all would like to start that long drive home before 9:00PM on Thursday. In addition, Manor is a 6-lane pool which gives us less space than our normal 8-lane configuration.

The theme for the meet will be Tropical. Throw on your best Hawaiian shirt, grab a lei, and chill like you’re at the beach. Thank you to all those who have already signed up to volunteer. There are still a handful of positions available (an important note here: Manor usually provides free drink tickets to all meet volunteers), so please make sure to fill those prior to Thursday evening. Manor will have member-sign beverage and food services throughout the meet. Their snack bar will be open for food and they will have their wood-fired pizza oven working throughout the meet as well. While it is a long trip, we have always had a good time at Manor and they play a great host. So brave the drive and then relax. I am not even going to mention our history with weather and away Manor meets…

Friday Fun Day Activity

As always, we will have our Fun Friday practice from 8:45-10AM. This week that will be followed by our team tie-dying session. So bring a blank shirt, or an old Army Navy team shirt (the navy blue ones like this year’s don’t tend to do as well with tie dye) to decorate for Saturday’s Squirt Gun meet. The tie-dying will be done on the grass next to the parking deck near the staff entrance gate to the pool. Come for practice, stay for the tie dying, enjoy the club-provided treat.

Squirt Gun Mini-Meet @ Washington Golf

Saturday, July 11th – 7:30AM Warm Ups – 8:00AM Meet Start – Theme: Tie Dye

The Squirt Gun meet is a 10&U developmental meet open to all swim team members 10 years old and younger. This meet is a great opportunity for our 10&U swimmers to get some extra swims in with some strokes they maybe don’t get to try at our regular dual meets. The B Meet rules mentioned above apply here as well. Swimmers should not swim any event in which they have placed in the top 3 at any dual meet so far this year. What’s different about it?

• Only 10&U swimmers compete
• Each event is broken down into single-age heats to provide for better competition
• It will invariably be either blazing, surface-of-the-sun-level hot, or pouring down rain and nothing in between
• There is a 10&U IM event that is not offered at our regular dual meets
• Every swimmer will walk away with squirt gun at the end of the meet (that they definitely cannot shoot at the coaches as soon as they fill them)
• You get to propose events for your swimmer. Please make sure all entries are made by Friday morning at noon.

The meet should be completed prior to 11:00AM. We have not received specific information from Washington Golf yet, so the warm up time above is a guess based on previous years. We will make sure to update if there is any change to that. Usually Washington Golf has a breakfast buffet afterward for swimmers and spectators to partake of. Again, we will update when we receive that information.

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Before I sign off, a quick note about next week. On Tuesday, July 14th we will host the A Division Relay Championships. These meet entries need to be in a little earlier than normal dual meets. Please make sure your swimmers availability has been designated for this meet early this week so that we can get those relays together and find some time for them to practice relay starts with each other prior to the meet. While you are at it, go ahead and mark availability for Divisionals and Champs meets as well.

Rest up from the holiday weekend and get ready to start things all over again tomorrow morning. Things will be a little cooler than last week thankfully, but still plenty to do (and hopefully two US World Cup games to watch – Go, Go USA!).

From the Deck,

Coach Ian