Who loves a senior? Everyone!

Our last home swim meet of the 2009-2010 has come to pass and with it another amazing Senior Day. Signs and gifts and adulation filled our pool Friday night for our seniors. And this excitement led to an amazing team effort for our last dual meet of the season.

Late Friday night, after the excitement and the cleanup, I was talking with my wife about all the big moments. I soon realized there were so many highlight-able swims that our meet really was filled with one highlight after another. Our kids had lifetime bests, season bests, and came out ahead in so many close races to the finish.

Our men, fueled by senior excitement, won several races and looked great doing it. The women commanded the lead through the meet and it all came down to the last relay. This is really the pinnacle of swimming exhilaration. With races swum and applause ringing out, the women finished the meet with a 3-point victory and both squads will take heaps of confidence into our Championship meet in just under two weeks!

Kira: Age group swimmer 9 years old, going on 20

Susie is fired-up about Senior Day. And next year will be her turn…

Glow Practice

Earlier this week Zac Hixson went on a lunch excursion with the coaches that ended up at 7-Eleven. He eschewed the Slurpee machine in favor of the trinket aisle.

Zac had a plan!

He brought oodles of glow sticks to workout for an impromptu techno swim party during warm-up.

Orange and black, meet orange and black: Pioneer women take on Division I Oregon State

On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the women’s team traveled south to Oregon State University for a dual meet. I love the chance to race fast, new competition and this was a great opportunity. This was also the end of a string of several meets for our team. With Winter Training barely in our rearview mirrors, our women swam tough, tired races and had fun traveling together.

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Ten of our men caravanned down to Corvallis on their own to cheer on their teammates and this had a big impact on the noise level and the excitement during the meet. We usually train, travel and compete together, so it was natural for our men to want to support the women. I loved seeing them organize for the trip down to the meet.

Afterward, OSU joined our swimmers for pizza and chit-chat in what turned out to be a great opportunity to showcase our matching school colors.

Sights of Winter Training 2010

Family time with Pio Swimming

Each year on winter training we find ourselves treated to the magnificent hospitality of our swimmers’ families. Friday evening we descended on Shuichi’s family home where his parents generously stuffed us with carne asada, Korean barbecue, teriyaki chicken, homemade vegetable soup and more delicious fare.

With the possible exception of bunny rabbits, no one loves carrots and celery more than Josh Spegman.

Pio Swimming and the Matsumoto family after dinner

Shu’s little brother treated us to a piano performance and a classical piano tutorial.

Saturday after morning workout Kim’s mom delivered to the pool an array of spectacular donuts with milk and orange juice. Her second annual donut-laden visit to our Winter Training and just as well-received as last year! Swimmers and their coaches work so hard, it’s nice to for our hard to work be recognized with donuts.

Winter Training/Sweet Sunshine!

The California Chapter: Kickoff Photo

We’re three workouts into our southern California trip and the Pios are soaking up the rays and powering through their sets. Two meets sit on the horizon before our return to Portland and the unfolding of second semester. With several more great workouts ahead of us this winter, it’s apparent our training is on track for great swims right into the Conference Championship.

Sometimes you feel like the ground just drops out from under you...

And then you realize that hard work eventually pays off!

Happy Holidays from Pioneer Swimming!

This year the swim team decided on a combined-holiday event for the annual winter party and called it “Thanksmas.” This tough-to-score invite included a home cooked dinner and white elephant gift exchange to rival all others. Zac opened his home to the team for a great evening of laughter and good food just before Finals began.

Our swimmers are now spread around the globe with loved ones and I trust they fall asleep each night with visions of winter training (and our California trip!) dancing in their heads. We’ll be back together again soon!

November..... meet December!

Invite over, calm returns to our pool

Just in time for a well-earned, much-sought-after Thanksgiving break, the Northwest Invitational is behind us. Strong swimming and so much competition has left us both fired-up for the rest of our season and a little drained. There is nothing like a national holiday to put the pep back into your step.

Here you see Josh Spegman after his 7th place finals swim in the 200 Freestyle. Take my word for it, he is way more excited about his lifetime best swim than he lets on in this priceless candid. And in Rachael’s top five best things about championship swim meets has to be medals with centers that spin.

We’re two weeks from our last dual meet of the term, but first our thoughts turn to family or friends for the holiday this week.

Record-breaking night of finals!

Our team’s swim, nay, the swim of the night, came with Rachael’s victory in the 100 yard freestyle. She lopped more time off her top-seeded swim from prelims and notched her first Lewis & Clark school record in the process. This coach believes she’s only scratched the surface of what she can accomplish in our sport.

Rachael continued the women’s team’s recent record-setting trend as she edged ahead of alumni Nikoya Collier’s mark set last season at the Conference Championship.

A solid night of racing all around. Great relay splits tonight and strong swims. Cat’s powerful 200 Backstroke earned her 2nd place overall and she now owns the second best time in the Northwest Conference this season.

Freshmen Josh and Sam both made second swims in their 500s and showed us the future of Pioneer distance swimming is bright.

Kira rightly described our team’s spirit as, “The cheering-est!” Let’s do it again tomorrow!

Day One prelims, in the book

We return to the pool for Finals in less than two hours. This morning saw strong races, LOUD cheering, and one top seed going into our first night of finals. Below are a few pictures of last night’s preparation and how the team got ready for today.

Hosting the biggest meet of Fall semester!

A short twelve hours from now nineteen collegiate swimming programs (nine men’s and ten women’s) descend on Zehntbauer Swimming Pavilion for the Northwest Invitational. Teams from Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and California will soon grace our pool and fast swimming is in our future.

Our new spectator seating may well reach capacity and the pool that lays quiet now will erupt with cheers, applause, and the thunderous swims of 262 student-athletes. Join us in person or in spirit from wherever you are with a rousing, “Go Pios!”

Turkeys crash swim workout, mayhem ensues

Thanksgiving-fever (if there is such a thing) has certainly hit the swim team. Teammates Hannah Frank and Rachel Wolf spent a goodly part of their Sunday last weekend making cookie-candy turkeys for Monday swim practice.

Said Hannah, “It was really fun in the beginning, putting them together, but by the time you get to number twenty….”

First Travel Meet!

Our first away meet of the season is always a great adventure. I have to say, I was excited to see there was so much positive energy and chatter on the charter bus that no one even wanted to put a movie on for the trip.

The first night saw us take on the rest of the Northwest Conference in the annual 8th Sprint Pentathlon. Swimmers compete in a 100 IM followed by 50s of each stroke, for a total combined time. Certainly a format that lends itself well to the prototypical sprinter, but I’ve long held the belief that every single athlete can benefit from focusing on the fine points of each swim, supporting his or her teammates, and reveling in the racing environment. And this is what I saw last weekend!

Times are kept by event and by cumulative overall time. Freshman Rachael Cazden, from Boulder, won the 50 Freestyle in a field of about 120 women. She finished the meet our highest placing swimmer at 5th overall. Way to go! Rachael also moonlights as a hair stylist to her teammates and other notable celebrities as seen below.

Freshman breaststroke/sprinter Shuichi Matsumoto (pictured below as a breaststroker and also farther down as The Fly) lapped up the sprint opportunities and found himself our highest placing male at 12th over the whole slate of events.

We saw motivating swims from so many kids and great enthusiasm across the board. It’s impossible not to feel like we are headed in a great direction.

As it was, the direction we headed after the Pentathlon at PLU was across town to UPS for the Relay meet. Another “non-standard” format—this one with unusual relays and a lot of excitement.

Among many awesome swims, our most spectacular race came in the Mixed 200 Free Relay. Rachael, Gail, Shuichi, and Noah blazed through the sprint co-ed relay to a 2nd place overall finish.

Let’s be honest, these meets sometimes stretch on and it’s good to have time for a laugh...

And so ends another week in Pioneer Swimming.