Mallory Korenwinder raced to a 37.75 in the 50 meter breaststroke at the Porterville meet for a second place finish in the 11-12 girls age group and the time becomes the second fastest swam this year for any 11-year old in the nation. Mallory’s 37.75 is behind Dee Sopapong’s 37.44 which was established in January as the nation’s top 11 year old girl’s 50 meter breaststroke time. Dee is a foreign swimmer who swims for Tampa Bay Community Aquatics. Mallory’s time is also the second fastest time swam in our team’s history for any 11-12 year old girl.
44 TNT swimmers competed at the June Porterville long course meet in attempts to make new cuts for meets such as the Junior Olympics, the Age Group Invitational, Western Zones and Sectionals, all of which will be held later this summer. Examples of swimmers who had achieved new cuts include Sam Hansen (Sectionals – 400 IM), Mallory Korenwinder (Zones – 50 breaststroke) and Taylor Shaw (Age Group Invitational – 800 freestyle).
At a meet that almost didnt include the events from day two, Sam Hansen competes in the final heat on the final day of the Porterville meet and swam fast enough for to qualify of Sectionals in the 400 meter IM event. Sam has had previous experience at Sectionals while competing for FALFINS in Colorado, a team that practiced at the Olympic Training Center at Colorado Springs, Colorado. Sam had competed at the Sectional meet for Colorado, which was held at Federal Way, Seattle only a few months prior to arriving to TNT. Since each Sectional meet in the United States has different time standards, Sam now qualifies for the Western Sectionals meet that will be held in Clovis this summer. The winter Sectionals meet will be held at the Belmont pool in Long Beach. Sam is also one second away in the mile (1500 meter freestyle or 1650 yard freestyle events). Wish Sam good luck in qualifying in his second event.
Sam Hansen has returned from meets such as the Speedo Grand Challenge and the Janet Evans Invitational where he competed in meets with swimmers such as Jason Lezak and with swimmers from schools such as Auburn (Kohlton), Stanford, USC, Tulane and others, as well as with swimmers competing from countries such as Korea and Japan, to win three of his events in Porterville. Sam was the 15-over champion in the 200 IM, 200 breaststroke and 400 IM events.
Other individual swimmers who won events at the Porterville meet were led by 8-under Dax Korenwinder, who once again has a perfect undefeated performance winning all five of five events entered. Wesley Coles swam Saturday and won the 100 fly event, an event in which he had more recently qualified for the Senior Group on the team. Age Group Invitational qualifier Alex Ellis wins the 13-14 girls 100 fly event. High school swimming standout from Hanford, Hannah Giles won the 200 meter breaststroke, while relatively new arrival Katelyn Herrera takes first place finishes in both the 50 and 100 butterfly events, thereby beginning to establish herself as a force in that stroke to be reckoned with within CCS. High school swimmer training with Bill Freeman, Jill Jackson wins the 200 breaststroke event, while eight year old Thys Jacobi has triple wins taking the 100 and 200 freestyle events, along with the 200 IM event. From Visalia, brother and sister team of Jazmine Niayesh (6 year old) and Preston Niayesh (8 year old) also become champions winning two events each. Jazmine wins the 50 breaststroke and 50 freestyle events, while brother Preston wins the 50 breaststroke and 100 butterfly events. Our fourteen year old Nathan Rhea, working his way to his first Sectional cut, wins both the 100 and 200 meter breaststroke events. Allison Ross, who is nearing her first Age Group Invitational cut, became the champion if the 13-14 girls 100 backstroke event. Our final individual event champion went to 13 year old Talyor Shaw who wins the 200 meter backstroke event while she may had become the sole swimmer with the largest net improvement dropping nearly 20 seconds in the 800 freestyle event and over 18 seconds in the 400 IM events. While on the bottom of the age group, Taylor had also achieved her first Age Group Invitational time standard. Congratulations to all winners.
The 989.5 team points for TNT outscored all other teams by 647.5 points. Merced was the second place team with 342 combined points. Poterville awarded top three individual high point winners, and TNT swimmers were the recepients for many of these awards. Winning the youngest age group (6-under girls) was Jazmine Niayesh training in Visalia. 8-year old Madison McCarhty took home the 2nd place high point for the 8-under girls division while Thys Jacobi and Dax Korenwinder took home 1st and 2nd place awards respectively for the 8-under boys division. The Hanford duo of Parker Giles and Fayyaz Ahamed took home 2nd and 3rd place trophies for the 9-10 boys division, while Katelyn Herrera and Chris Hansen both took home the 3rd place trophy for the 11-12 girls and boys division respectively. In the 13-14 girls division, Allison Ross and Hannah Giles captured the 2nd and 3rd place finishes, while on the boy’s side, Nathan Rhea and Alex Hansen tied for the 3rd place finish. Sam Hansen was the 2nd place point getter for the 15-over boys division.
Besides winning events, TNT had several swimmers who improved all times that had been previously recorded on the team. New arrival from New York, swimming his second meet with TNT, Fayyaz Ahamed of Hanford improves 100% of his times that were previously recorded with our team. Chris Ewins and Nick Orton both training with Bill Freeman in Tulare both also improve 100%, while Jacquelyn Delgados Mackenzie Gilbert joins the perfect group improving all four of her four events. Angela Martinhos Katelyn Herrera and Visalias Athena Niayesh were the other two individual swimmers who improved all events. Congratulations to all six swimmers.
In addition to Sam Hansen qualifying for Sectionals, a few other swimmers had made new qualifying standards for upcoming championship-level meets. Eight year old Dax Korenwinder makes new cuts for the 10-under division of the Age Group Invitational meet, while sister Mallory Korenwinder achieves a new standard for Western Zones to be held in Hawaii in a couple of months. Thirteen year old Taylor Shaw achieved her first Age Group Invitational standard for this summers meet in Ventura and more than likely had qualified for the Winter Age Group Invitational meet in December. Congratulations to all new cuts made.