Sixty-one attached TNT swimmers along with four unattached swimmers traveled to compete at the San Luis Obispo Gobbler meet during the weekend before Thanksgiving. Three swimmers entered and swam the maximum allowable 11 events, and these swimmers included Chris Hansen of Tulare, Parker Giles of Hanford and Dax Korenwinder of Tulare. Chris Hansen led this group in improvements by improving 10 out of his 11 events for a 91% improvement rate. Chris maintained an improvement of nearly five seconds per event with the largest improvement being nearly 14 seconds in the 200 yard breaststroke event. Chris Hansens time of 2:42.23 breaks the previous teams record for 11-12 boys that was set at the beginning of this year by Chris Nolan also from Tulare who swam a 2:44.88 while competing at the All Star Q meet in January.
Of our 65 swimmers, 53 of them had times in 50 yard events or longer that were previously recorded on the team. The overall team improvement percentage was 57% which is above the 50% target considered a successful meet in terms of improvement percentages. This 57% team improvement rate was led by eight swimmers who improved all events entered. Swimmers who maintained a 100% improvement rate included: Bre Abel of Selma and sister Tristian Abel, Jake Caminero of Tulare, Cheyenne Droney of Visalia, Thys Jacobi of Tulare, Joe Koster of Visalia, Madison McCarthy of Tulare and Mia Newkirk of Hanford.
San Luis Obispo awarded 12-under swimmers in each Blue, Red and White divisions. Twenty-four of our swimmers earned first place finishes within one of these three divisions, or fist place in 13-over or Open divisions. Event champions for their respective divisions included Bre Abel (age 13: 100 fly), Fayyaz Ahamed (age 10: 100 fly, 50 back, 50 free & 50 fly), Allyson Duffy (age 11: 100 IM), Madison Ekizian (age 12: 100 free), Skylar Ford (age 7: 25 breast, 25 free & 25 fly), Madison Gilbert (age 13: 100 fly), Parker Giles (age 10: 200 free & 50 breast), Kyle Grissom (age 11: 50 fly), Alex Hansen (age 14: 200 free), Chris Hansen (age 12: 100 free, 100 IM, 200 IM, 100 breast & 50 fly), Thys Jacobi (age 9: 50 breast, 50 back, 100 IM & 50 free), Scott Jordan (age 14: 100 back), Dax Korenwinder (age 9: 100 breast), Jacqui Koster (age 10: 50 back), JD Koster (age 8: 50 breast, 100 breast), Jimmy Koster (age 12: 50 breast & 100 breast), Colin Landweer (age 15: 100 free), Conor Martin (age 13: 100 breast & 100 back), Makenna Mason (age 11: 100 fly), Mia Newkirk (age 11: 50 breast & 50 back), Preston Niayesh (age 9: 100 IM), Megan Nino (age 13: 100 breast), JT Scott (age 12: 200 IM) and Katherine Sullivan (age 7: 25 back).
An additional highlight of the meet was the daring performance of fourteen year old Alex Hansen who swam 500 yards butterfly with a time of 6:27.55 while swimming among the freestylers in the 500 freestyle event.
Our remaining 12 swimmers swam 25 yard events, or have swam times that are now newly recorded with our team. Welcome to: Hazim Ahamed, Madison Droney, Jayce Ford, Skylar Ford, Emily Goodbar, Jacob Goodbar, Jazmine Niayesh, Hannah Parker, Ana Porchia, Katherine Sullivan, Anthony Tellechea and Zachary Rust.