Triton Blog

Three TNT swimmers training out of the Slema program competed at the 2014 Junior Nationals in Orlando, Florida over the March 18-22 week. This meet is one of the largest senior meets in the nation fielding many of the country’s top 18-under athletes. Sixteen year old Jilluan Hatch came home with two new team records. She swam 52.57 in the 100 yard freestyle, sliding under her preexisting team record of 52.68 set last year at the Clovis meet. At the same Clovis meet last year, Jillian also swam 1:53.68 in the 200 freestyle, and while in Orlando this spring, she swam 1:53.35 to reset that record. She improved three of the four events she competed in, including the 100 free, 200 free and 50 free events. She also had the team’s highest finish of 107th in the 50 freestyle.

Emily Goodbar maintained a 60% improvement rate, improving three of her five events that included the 50 breaststroke, 50 butterfly and 50 backstroke events. Her highest finish was the in the 200 butterfly event where her time of 2:07.32 was enough for a 112th place finish in the event. Sierra Jett maintained a 50% improvement rate, improving both the 50 fly and 50 backstroke events. Her highest finish was 119th in the 50 fly, resulting from a time of 26.22. Mia Newkirk a former Hanford resident who trained TNT, now of California Capital, finished her meet with a bang, moving from 143rd to 69th in the 50 backstroke with her time of 26.96.

In preparation for the upcoming summer long course championship meets, five TNT swimmers traveled to compete in La Mirada in late February. In a unique meet schedule where two days of events were compacted into a single day due to difficulties related to pool availability, our five swimmers competed along with a handful of international swimmers representing USC. These swimmers included Nikita Lobintsev and Alexandr Sukhorukov who both represented Russia on the Silver medal 4×200 freestyle relay of the 2008 Olympics, as well as Yana Martynova from Russia who finished 24th in the 2012 Olympics in the 400 IM. Also joining the small meet was German swimmer Jan-Philip Glania who won the backstroke in La Mirada with a 2:02.65, and was the 6th place finisher in the semifinals at the 2012 Olympics. Miler Mateusz Sawrymowicz of Poland, a contemporary of 2000 and 2004 Olympic Gold Midlist Grant Hackett, also competed at the meet in his specialty event of the 1500 freestyle.

Our highest finisher was Mallory Korenwinder who came home with a first place finish in the 100 breaststroke in a time of 1:16.34, and a third place finish in the 200 breaststroke behind Martinova and a So Cal 15-year old in that event. Mallory’s time was 2:49.38. Katelyn Herrera had our next highest finish of 6th in the 800 freestyle with her time of 9:45.96, and place was followed by an 8th place swim by Owen Ansel with a 1:12.46 in the 100 breaststroke event. Chris Hansen competed in an event along with Trojan Jason Block in the 200 breaststroke, Chris finishing 11th in a time of 2:46.92. Matthew Tashima finished 18th in the 50 freestyle in a time of 26.45 where the Trojan Lobintsev took home the win in a time of 22.62.

After winning last year’s short course Junior Olympics, and last summer’s long course Junior Olympics, Tule Nation Tritons came up 373 points short of winning this year’s short course championship meet. Clovis outscored TNT 3,729.5 to 3,357.5 points in the combined women and men’s division, and outscored TNT on the women’s side 2,271.5 to 1,820.5 points. TNT male swimmers outscored all teams at the meet, leading Clovis by 79 points.

Our total team points from individual events was led by 10-year old Visalia swimmer Kylie Walker whose 134 points resulted from five first place finishes and two second place finishes. Kylie was one of only two TNT swimmers to win an event, and was also our team’s only High Point recipient, outscoring all 10-under girls at the meet. Her performance resulted in resetting five team records beginning with the 100 fly where she improved her own team record that was set as a 1:07.77 while competing at the All Star meet last month. She improved her time by over a full second to a 1:05.99, and swimming a time that places her among the top 10 swimmers in the nation to date. Kylie proceeded to break her preexisting 100 IM team record that she set at the Tulare meet last October as a 1:10.37 with a 1:10.14 that moves her to the 64th position nationally in that event. Her third team record was in the 50 free, and is a new one for her, set by Skylar Ford at the Selma meet in 2012 as a 27.56. Kylie’s new record of 27.54 stands as the 40th fastest nationally for girls of age 10. Skylar also held the 100 freestyle team record that she set as a 1:00.99 at the Winter Age Group Invitational in 2012, and Kylie’s JO swim of 1:00.78 slid under that time, and becomes the 50th fastest nationally. Kylie rounded out the meet improving her time, and therefore team record, in the 50 fly event from a 29.41 that she swam in San Diego earlier to a 29.31, placing her among the top six nationally.

Our only other event champions included 16-year old Khloe McCarthy who went home with a win on day one, swimming 18:08.54 in the 1650 freestyle event and Preston Niayesh who swam to a first place finish in the 200 breaststroke with a time of 2:22.76 qualifying for the Terrapin Senior meet that takes place in November. Other Championship finalists included Bre Abell, Danielle Albright, Owen Ansel, Damian Brown, Morgan Coddington, Tomas Contreras, Peyton Costa, Alonso Escobedo, Layla Flores, Skylar Ford, Emily Goodbar, Kyle Grissom, Jillian Hatch, Noah Haworth, Katelyn Herrera, Jackson Huckabay, Sierra Jett, Toby Jones, Mallory Korenwinder, Khloe McCarthy, Sofia Mora, Cody Nash, Madison Pallares, Emma Pena, Garrison Price, Alex Roberts, Satoshi Shinkawa, Katherine Sullivan, Kylie Walker, Wyatt Ward, Sydnee Wilson, and Alexa Wong.

Forty-seven of our 65 swimmers scored at the meet:

Tule Nation Tritons fielded 52 relays, and 46 of those scored, contributing 1,500 points toward the overall team score. Three CCS Records were established by two distinct relays by the 15-16 year old girls at Junior Olympics. The team of Khloe McCarthy, Mallory Korenwinder, Emily Goodbar and Sierra Jett set the Team, 15-16 CCS and Senior CCS relay records with a time of 1:51.21 in the 200 Medley relay. The TNT team of Khloe McCarthy, Morgan Coddington, Sierra Jett and Katelyn Herrera had set the CCS Record in December as a 1:53.98, and the Senior CCS Record was set in 1996 by Clovis as a 1:52.41. Our same team set the CCS 15-16 Record in the 400 Medley Relay with a time of 3:58.87, going under the preexisting record of 4:10.42 that our team of Khloe McCarthy, Morgan Coddington, Sierra Jett and Jillian Hatch had set in December at the Winter Invitational.

Team relay records were also set in the 13-14 boys 200 Medley Relay with a time of 1:51.88 by Alonso Escobedo, Preston Niayesh, Satoshi Shinkawa and Blake Wong. Justin Warner, Jimmy Koster, Luke Dignan and Justin Bos had set the record as a 1:52.50 at last year’s Junior Olympics. The same team, with Quinton Davis replacing Blake Wong, set the team record in the 400 Medley Relay with their time of 4:02.42, going under the 4:11.21 set last year by Owen Ansel, Noah Haworth, Kyle Grissom and Jeremiah Santillana. Our 10-under boys of Benjamin Wheeler, Toby Jones, Tomas Contreras and Peyton Costa reset the 200 Medley Relay team record with their time of 2:16.48, going well under the 2:21.35 record set by Parker Giles, Dax Korenwinder, Jonas Huckabay and Micah Ruiz at JO’s in 2010. The same team also set the team 200 freestyle relay record with their time of 2:01.17 going under the 2:02.17 record set in 2011 by Dax Korenwinder, JD Koster, Jonus Huckabay and Preston Niayesh. Two 15-18 team freestyle relay records were also reestablished, beginning with the 1:40.50 that resulted from the team of Mallory Korenwinder, Khloe McCarthy, Bre Abell and Sierra Jett in the 200 free relay. This time was under the Winter Invite swim of 1:41.76 by Sierra Jett, Khloe McCarthy, Katelyn Herrra and Jillian Hatch this past December. Mallory, Bre, Sierra and Jillian Hatch swam a 3:36.22 in the 400 free relay which is under the Winter Invite time of 3:44.82 posted by Emily Goodbar, Sierra Jett, Khloe McCarthy and Jillian Hatch.

Fifteen of our 65 swimmers improved all events that they competed in, thereby maintaining a 100% improvement rate. Congratulations to: Alonso Escobedo (9 of 9), Layla Flores (7 of 7), Amanda Garabedian (1 of 1), Mackenzie Garza (1 of 1), Kyle Grissom (6 of 6), Brandon Hatch (1 of 1), Annlyn Haworth (3 of 3), Maya Herrera (7 of 7), London Jones (1 of 1), Mallory Korenwinder (8 of 8), James Lamb (5 of 5), Wyatt Ward (5 of 5), Sydnee Wilson (1 of 1), Alexa Wong (4 of 4) and Bryan Wong (2 of 2).

TNT fielded a team of 27 swimmers to compete at the indoor facility in Ridgecrest over the last weekend of January, and came home with a total of eight event champions, each earning points in individual events. Sixteen year old Hanford swimmer Jeremiah Santillana a led the group by winning nine of his ten events thereby accumulating 88 total points. He was closely followed by ten year old Peyton Costa who won eight of his ten events, earning 86 points. Our next highest point getter was 12-year old Garrison Price winning five of his ten events, placing 2^nd in the next four, and 3^rd in his remaining event. Tristan Gaines of Hanford had the next highest points with 71 that resulted from two 1^st place, five 2^nd place and three 3^rd place finishes, while swimming her first meet as an 11-year old, Danielle Albright was our fifth highest point getter with 64, winning two of her events, placing 2^nd in five others, and including a 3^rd place finish. Fourteen year old Blake Wong was our only undefeated swimmer, winning six of his events in the 13-14 division, and earning 54 points. Eight year old Damian Brown finished 3^rd in eight of his nine events, resulting in 52 points, that tied with 18-year old Hanford swimmer Taylor Shaw who won five of her six events and finished 2^nd in the remaining one. Visalia swimmer Benjamin Wheeler was our ninth highest point getter with 46.5 points, resulting in two 2^nd place finishes, and two 3^rd place finishes among his ten events. Seven year old Alexa Wong rounded out our top 10 point getters with 46 points that resulted in wins in two events, and 2^nd place finishes in her remaining four events.

The team’s overall improvement percentage was 68% led by eight swimmers who improved all events they had entered. Those with the perfect performance at the meet included: Alexa Wong, Brett Wong, Bryce Wong, Caleb Bonds, Ciara Clarke, Garrison Price, Jacob Kitt and Megan Pedro. The majority of our swimmers improved 50% or more of their times, and they included: Jillian Gaines (90%), Aubrie Walker (89%), Tristan Gaines (89%), Desmond Brown (86%), Gage Price (83%), Damian Brown (80%), Jeremiah Santillana (75%), Benjamin Wheeler (70%), Annlyn Haworth (67%), Blake Wong (67%), Katherine Sullivan 63%), Bryan Wong (60%), Emmie Walker (57%), and Peyton Costa (50%).

Christopher Nolan’s 11^th place finish at Junior Nationals in December awarded him a spot on the 2014 California-Nevada All Star Team to compete against the Itoman Swim Club of Japan at the Wakayama Championships scheduled over the February 15-16 weekend. The 36-member team (18 male and 18 female) will depart on Tuesday, February 11^th for Osaka, Japan to allow time for acclimation and recovery from the time change. Team members include swimmers such as National Record Holder, Alex Valente, as well as a number of National Junior Team, and National Select Camp members. Chris is scheduled to compete in the 100 fly, 400 IM and 200 fly events. Swimmers were selected based on their performance at Nationals, Junior Nationals, and national rankings resulting from performances at Sectionals. The All Star competition with Japan is the first of a two-year exchange. Japan is tentatively scheduled to compete here in America the following year.