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Sixteen year old Thomas Brown and fifteen year old Colin Landweer establish their first Sectional qualifying times while at the Tulare meet during the first weekend of December. Colins determined swim in the 200 yard freestyle earned him a 1:48.63 and was fast enough to slip just under the 1:48.79 cut. Thomas Browns sprint in the 50 yard freestyle ended with a time of 22.56 which was also fast enough for both the Long Beach Grand Prix cut of 22.89 and the Sectional cut of 22.59. Colin and Thomas will join current qualifiers who have expressed intent to compete at Sectionals, and these include Nathan Rhea, Sam Hansen, Josh Tabers and Hannah Giles. Current Grand Prix qualifiers include Katherine Bristow, Sam Hansen, Nathan Rhea, Thomas Brown, Josh Tabers and Bobby Yribarren. These swimmers may compete at the Grand Prix meet which is currently scheduled to include swimmers such as Michael Phelps, Matt Grievers and Katie Hoff.
Twelve year old Kyle Grissom training in Visalia set a new team record in the 11-12 boys 50 yard butterfly event. Kyles time of 28.25 broke a record that was set in 1994 by Jason Ricablanca at the AA meet in Cerritos. Kyle now holds three of the top four times on the team in the event. An additional accomplishment was Kyles 1:04.03 in the 100 butterfly, which was his second Western Zone qualifying time for next years Zone meet which will be held in San Jose during August.
Three hundred and thirty seven swimmers representing fourteen swim teams throughout Central California Swimming converged to compete in Tulare during the first weekend of December. The 100 swimmers of Tule Nation Tritons 1,479.5 points outscored all other teams, with Clovis Swim Clubs 1,005 points coming in second. The third place team was Fresno Dolphins Swim Team with 679 points.
Tule Nation Tritons had three swimmers who received high point awards. Six year old Danielle Albright swam unchallenged as she won all 8 events she swam in the 6-under division (50 free, 25 fly, 25 back, 50 breast, 50 back, 25 free, 25 breast & 100 free) thereby outscoring all other 6-under female swimmers at the meet, while JD Koster received the high point award for all 7-8 year old boys by a 79-73 margin over the runner up. Our final high point recipient was Cori Hoover who outscored all female swimmers 15 years and older at the meet.
Our other undefeated swimmer was Christopher Nolan who, while on the bottom of the 13-14 age group, won all three events he swam (200 breast, 100 breast & 500 free). Event champions included Katherine Bristow (100 back & 50 free), Thomas Brown (50 free & 100 free), Wesley Coles (100 fly), Madison Elick (1650 free), Kyle Grissom (50 fly & 100 fly), Chris Hansen (100 breast & 500 free), Sam Hansen (100 breast), Katelyn Herrera (200 fly), Mallory Korenwinder (200 breast & 50 breast), JD Koster (50 free, 100 IM, 25 back, 50 breast, 50 fly, 25 free, 25 breast & 100 free), Josh Koster (100 free), Colin Landweer (200 free), Conor Martin (1650 free), Nathan Rhea (200 free, 100 back & 200 IM0, and Kayla Ross (100 back).
The teams 53% improvement percentage included 80 swimmers who had previously recorded times in events that are 50 yards or longer. Eighteen of these swimmers improved all events they swam. Perfect improvements came from: Kaleigh Botill, Thomas Brown, Sydnie Burleson, Jake Caminero, Trevor De Leeuw, Elaine Draper, Cheyenne Droney, Cristo Droney, Madison Droney, Olivia Fernandes, Jacob Harms, Michael Mason, Aneesha Nagra, Christopher Nolan, Hannah Parker, Nathan Rhea, Zachary Rust and Ivan Villalvazo.