Bannockburn Swim Team

Dolphin Times

Issue 4, Season 2014

Please share the Dolphin Times with your swimmers. We email only to the parents, but the fun of the newsletter is for the kids to see their names and their races written up. Pictures and prior editions of the Dolphin Times are available online at http://bannockburnswimteam.blogspot.com.

Bannockburn Just Short vs. Little Falls

By Doll Finn

Senior Dolphin Correspondent

Swimming can come down to just 1/100^th of a second.

Just asking the Bannockburn Dolphins, which fell on Saturday to Little Falls in a match that appeared much closer than the final 43 point margin would have indicated.

It appeared that just a few more surges to the wall could have well tilted the meet in favor of the Dolphins. Yet when you enter the season as the lowest ranked team in the division, it means that there is no margin for error. And that is how it played out at Little Falls.

The meet started with two hotly contested 100 IMs. Shifra Eskin took second for the girls with Katie MacIsaac in third and Maya Lall in sixth.  Gideon Helf missed first place by half a finger with Andrew O’Brien in second and Lucca Scott in fifth.

In both 200 Medley Relays, Bannockburn took second and third. For the girls, Elena Palermo, Hannah Melrod, Jessie Kline and Bryna Steele were followed by the team of Samantha Kline, Alexa Crist, Gabriela Helf and Caitlin Ryan. For the boys, the team of Jack MacIsaac, Jack Blazes, John Janezich and Vince Steis was followed by the team of Owen Wassiliew, Alex Burbelo, Ethan Wendel and Alex Butman.

There are two other IMs. In the 13/14 IM. Jeffrey Su scored an all star time and the win. Jack Blazes took third and Ray Crist was sixth. For the girls, Katya Damskey took second, Danielle Lair-Ferrari was third and Caitlin Ryan was fifth.

For the 15/18 IM, John Janezich took first by a second with Owen Wassiliew and Vince Steis in fifth and sixth. Jessie Kline took third with Bryna Steele in fifth.

It has become almost a cliché in the Dolphin Times to argue that meets are won and lost based on the eight and unders. They are always the heart of the team and often the margin in the 175 relays at the end of the meet.

For this meet, the under eights were critical. Will Spooner took first in 25 free with Max Kroloff in third and Anthony Noya in sixth and Aidan O’Brien in seventh. For the girls in 25 free, Darby LeFaivre took first with Taylor Pyle in fifth and Annie Kessner in sixth. Maya Clancy got eighth, Clara Baisinger-Rosen was ninth and Nadia Lall took 12^th.

In 25 back, Will got his second win of the day. James LeFaivre was fifth and Alex Spooner was sixth. Maya Clancy took second for the girls with Annie in fourth and Taylor in fifth.

Max kept up the under 8 boys winning ways in the 25 breast with James and Aidan in third and fourth. Max won by two seconds. Darby also continued to win with first in 25 breast. She was an impressive 10 seconds faster than anyone else in the heat and scored an all star time. She led off a Dolphin sweep of the event with Taylor Celia getting second and third.

In 25 fly, Will got his third win as part of a Dolphin sweep. Max was second and Aidan was third. Darby easily won the 25 fly as none of the Little Falls swimmers were legal in the stroke.

Yet the top performance of the day may have gone to five year old Nadia Lall who swam a legal 25 fly to finish second. Nadia initially was expected to be on pre-team this season but she clearly takes too much after her sister for that.

In 9/10, it was going to be a challenge. Andrew O’Brien got an all star time in 50 free but still came in third. Cole Wassiliew was fourth, Matthew Wu was eighth, Meyer Eskin was 10^th, Jack Burke was 11^th and Jacob Seiberg was 12^th though his goggles came in 13^th. For the girls, Evelyn Wassiliew was second, Maya Lall was fourth, Ella Scott took eight, Sam MacIsaac was 10^th, Lucy Lauren Caddell was 11^th and Anna-Louise Cobau was 12^th.

For 25 back, Matthew took fourth, Jacob took fifth and Meyer was sixth. On the girls side, Evelyn was second, Maya was third and Ella was sixth.

Andrew got another all star time, but finished second in 25 breast. Cole and Meyer were third and fourth.  Maya took second for the girls. This theme continue with 25 fly as Andrew got an all star time and second place. Evelyn was second for the girls.

The 11/12 age bracket was more of a mixed bag. Gideon Helf took first in 50 free with Ali Shafi in fourth, Lucca Scot in fifth, Tyler Crist in sixth  Morgan White in seventh and Duncan Ryan in eighth. For the girls, Shifra had a strong swim but still finished second. Colleen Zeugin took seventh.

In 50 back, Gideon and Lucca were one and two while Katie MacIsaac was second and Colleen was fifth. Shifra and Katie took first and second in 50 breast with Gideon taking first for the boys and Morgan White in third. Ali took fourth.

Lucca won the 50 fly with Duncan in third. Shifra took second for the girls.

Bannockburn fought back in the 13/14 races with Jeffrey Su and Ray Crist taking first and second in 50 free. Jack Blazes, Jack MacIsaac, Alex Butman and Ethan Wendel were fifth through eighth. Jeffrey won the 50 back in an all star time with Jack Blazes in fourth and Ray in fifth.

Jack Blazes took first in the 50 breast with Jeffrey Su in second and Jack McIsaac in fifth. Ray took second in 50 fly.

Little Fall’s Rachel Danegger and the Dolphin’s Katya Damskey are winter swim buddies, but they were rivals on Saturday. Rachel used a strong final push to out touch Katya in 50 free. Danielle Lair-Ferrari took third with Caitlin Ryan in fourth, Gabriella Helf in eighth, Mariana Pennybacker in 10^th and Naomi Seiberg in 11^th.  In 50 back, Katya took first with Gabriela in fifth.

Danielle took third in 50 breast with Alexa Crist in fourth and Caitlin in fifth. Katya was second in 50 fly with an all star time.

It is always amazing to watch the 15/18 year olds fly through the water.  John Janezich scored an all star time and the win in 100 free.  Vince Steis took sixth. Owen Wassiliew, James Cobau and Alex Burbelo all swam up in this age group and they took eighth, 10^th and 11^th.

In the 100 back, John again won with an all star time. Vince was fourth and Owen took fifth. For 100 breast, the Dolphins used the three swimmer who were swimming up in age group. Owen took fourth while Alex and Hugo Burbelo tied for fifth. John continued to win, taking first in the 50 fly. Vince was fifth and James was sixth.

For the girls, Bryna Steele was third, just 3/100 of a second out of second. Jessie Kline was fourth, Hannah Melrod was fifth, Elena Palermo was seventh, Samantha Kline was 10^th and Sarah Cobau swam up in age group to take 12^th. In 100 back, Jessie was second, Bryna took fifth and Hannah had sixth. Jessie took third in the 50 fly.

The meet always ends with the 175 relay. The Dolphin team of Andrew O’Brien, Gideon Helf, Jeffrey Su and Will Spooner took first  while the team of Cole Wassiliew, Ali Shafi, Ray Crist and Max Kroloff was fourth.

The team of Evelyn Wassiliew, Shifra Eskin, Katya Damskey and Darby LeFaivre took second while the team of Maya Lall, Katie MacIsaac, Danielle Lair-Ferrari and Taylor Pyle was fourth.

Dolphins Beat Thunder; Finish B Meet

By Haydn the Dog

Dolphin Editor in Chief

The Bannockburn Dolphins traveled over the One Lane Bridge for the annual B meet against Palisades.

Yet the real fight was against the weather. This editor saw many parents constantly checking the weather maps on their phones. Despite the constant threat of storms, the Dolphins finished the meet and all but the automation team and B meet representatives should have had plenty of time to get home before the weather hit.

Most Bannockburn Dolphins entered the meet with at least one prior time in each stroke. This permits Dolphin Times to resume its tradition of highlighting those who had some impressive time improvements in this meet.

All of the following swimmers had at least a 5% time improvement in the events that are highlighted:

·      Hugo Burbelo took 3.24 seconds off on 50 back.

·      Jack Burke took 2.98 seconds off on 50 free.

·      Timothy Burke took 31.81 seconds off his 25 free time.

·      Lauren Caddell took 2.82 seconds off 50 free.

·      Maya Clancy took 1.86 seconds off 25 free and 7.92 seconds off 25 back.

·      Anna-Louise Cobau took 2.88 seconds off 25 breast.

·      Alexa Crist took 2.01 seconds off 50 free and 7.95 seconds off 100 IM.

·      Nora Feldbaum took 2.79 seconds off 25 free.

·      Thaddeus Felten took 3.02 seconds off 25 back.

·      Darby LeFaivre took 1.88 seconds off 25 breast.

·      Samantha MacIsaac took 7.81 seconds off 100 IM.

·      Andrew O’Brien took 5.67 seconds off 100 IM.

·      Erin Pollack took 5.24 seconds off 50 free.

·      Caitlin Ryan took 4.88 seconds off 100 IM.

·      Jacob Seiberg dropped 3.64 seconds on 25 breast.

·      Sofia Silvertooth dropped 3.78 seconds on 50 free.

·      Alex Spooner dropped 1.96 seconds in 25 free.

Look for updated results next week from our next B meet. What we do is compare the time at the B meet against their prior best time for the season. Then we highlight everyone who had an improvement of at least 5%. It is true that 5% is a big number for the older kids, but B meets are geared toward newer and/or younger swimmers. So there are often a lot of 5% improvements.

The software Dolphin Times uses is not the greatest so there is always the risk that we miss something. Please email the Dolphin Times at haydnthedogseiberg@gmail.com with anything we accidently excluded and we will get it in the next edition.

Dolphins Take Second Loss to Thunder in 2014

By Walter Tu Kold

Dolphin Correspondent

Darn that summer weather.

The thunder rolled into Bannockburn around 4:30 pm on Wednesday ahead of this week’s B meet vs. Somerset. As some may recall, the Derecho caused the last home meet v. Somerset to be canceled as our pool didn’t have power.

The hope was to wait out the storm and it appeared to stop thundering around 5:45, which would have meant the meet could have started around 6:15. There was a growing sense of excitement among the scores of swimmers.

Or was that dread because they all had just downed slices of peperoni or cheese pizza during the delay, which meant no one really wanted to compete with a stomach full of food.

In either event, the weather did not cooperate and the meet had to be canceled. Despite the loss of the meet, this reporter was impressed with how the swimmers rallied by devouring 16 pizzas within the first 15 minutes of their delivery. That is a team that is destined for glory.