In a rare late SCY season appearance, Badger Swim club took a small group to Speedo Sectional Championships at Ithaca last weekend with a single goal: swim fast and make cuts. This meet was for the swimmers, and John decided to forgo entering relays to allow the kids to focus on the task at hand. The results were outstanding. Badger swimmers won 8 Individual golds, one silver and four bronze medals. Leading the charge, were Andrew Babyak, Carly Cummings, and Quinn Scannell. Over the course of the weekend, 19 national level cuts were made: 7 Winter Juniors, 4 Summer Juniors, 3 Winter Nationals, 3 Summer Nationals, and 2 US Open. Due to caliber of the swims, we are considering bringing the whole team next year. Due to the caliber of individual swims, this small sectional group placed 8th in the meet (without relays).

We had impressive performances and many personal bests from Andrew Babyak, Maria Burtseva, Jared Copeland, Carly Cummings, Christian Farricker, Kim Jogis, Alexa Lantin, Haofeng Liu, Jack Loveless, Liam Loveless, Jalen Ramjohn, Mary Rotenberg, Paula Scanlan, Quinn Scannell, Asher Stukelman, and Garrett Towne. Complete results can be found at this link.

Some swims of note include:

Andrew won the 1000 with a time of 9:13.09 and qualified for Summer Juniors at NCAC. He followed up with a win in the 500 and 1650. His time of 15:26.79 earned a Winter National berth.

Quinn won the 200FR and 200BK. Her time of 54.67 earned 2nd place in the 100BK and a Summer Junior cut. And, after three other junior cuts spread throughout the weekend, Quinn ended the meet with a 1:57.00 in her win of the 200BK. It was her first US Open cut of the meet. Quinn also won the female High Point award for the meet.

After qualifying for Open Water Juniors, Christian headed to Ithaca with a goal of making Juniors in a pool swim. He earned his first Junior cut in the 400IM with a time of 3:57.25. He later missed the 200FLY Junior cut by .01 with a time of 1:51.60.

Not to be outdone, Carly had a great meet. She won three events: 400IM, 200BR, and 200IM, and her times of 4:12.63 (400IM), 2:12.18 (200BR), and 1:58.77 (200IM) were all Summer National cuts and put her in the mix for an amazing summer.

These past few weekends you would be hard pressed to find a meet without a Badger Swimmer in it. Badger Swimmers are competing at every level, with success individually and as a team.

Badger Swim Club was represented at 10 meets over the past few weekends including:

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• Arena Pro
• NY State Boys High School Swimming and Diving Championships at Eisenhower Park
• Metro 8 Under Champs at Felix Festa
• American Short Course Championships in Austin Texas Moved to San Antonia (Small Pool Issue)
• PAC-12 Championships Men and Women

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• 2017 New England Division I Prep School Championships Boys and Girls
• BIG10 Championships
• Ivy League Championships Men and Women
• Colonial Athletic Association
• New England Small College Athletic Conference

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New England Prep School Championships

Badger Swimmers Will Powers, Keegan Drew, Christian Farricker and James Simone reached a team high 3rd place finish for Brunswick School Swimming and Diving Team.

William Powers: 1st 500 Free (4:38.97) 6th 200 Free (1:43.65) 5th 400 Free Relay
James Simone: 2nd 500 Free (4:39.67) 7th 200 Free (1:44.02) 5th 400 Free Relay
Keegan Drew: 5th 200 Free (1:43.18) 7th 100 Free (47.02) 5th 400 free Relay
Christian Farricker: 2nd 200 IM (1:53.18) 4th – 100 Fly ( 51.57) 5th 400 Free Relay

The ladies of Greenwich Academy stole the spotlight at the New England meet with the Team Title aided by Badger swimmers, Paula Scanlan, Diana Tromontano, Quin Scannell.

Paula Scanal: 1st 200 Medley Relay, 8th – 100 Free (53.66), 5th – 100 Back (58.28)
Diana Tramontano: 4th – 200 IM (2:10.74) 7th – 100 Breast (1:07.84)
Quin Scannell: 1st: 200 Free (1:48.01) 1st – 500 Free (4:55.66) 1st – 200 Free Relay

All American Short Course Championships

Carly Cummings had no issues with the pool change with wins in the women’s 200 & 400 IM’s 1st – 200 IM ( 1:59.13), 1st – 400 IM ( 4:13.44), 5th – 100 Breast (1:03.11), 6th – 200 Fly (2:00.99)

New York State High School Championships

Led by Badger assistant coach, Dominick Galimi, Fordham took home the 2017 NY State Boys High School team title. Congrats to Fordham, and all the Badgers who represented their respective high schools in this meet.

Andrew Babyak: (New Rochelle/ Bronxville) 10th in 200 Free (1:41.33), 1st in 500 Free (4:26.26), 3rd in 200 Free Relay, 3rd in 400 Free Relay

Jared Copeland: (Fordham Prep) 19th in 200 IM (1:58.73), 24th in 100 Fly (52.81), 4th in 200 Medley Relay

Spencer LaFata: (Fordham Prep) 7th in 200 Free (1:40.86), 2nd in 500 Free (4:29.62), 4th in 200 Free Relay, 1st in 400 Free Relay

Aristides Speres: (Fordham Prep) 11th in 50 Free (21.22), 8th in 100 Free (46.38), 4th in 200 Free Relay, 1st in 400 Free Relay

Haofeng Liu: (Scarsdale High School)50th in 200 Free (1:47.76), 21st in 200 Medley Relay, 31st in 200 Free Relay, 17th in 400 Free Relay

Jack Loveless: (Fox Lane High School) 32nd in 200 Free (1:45.95) 10th in 500 Free (4:42.24)

Liam Loveless: (Fox Lane High School) 15th in 100 Breast (59.30)

Not to be outdone by the current Badger Swim Club athletes, our college swimmers have not been slacking off…

Stanford University

Junior Patrick Conaton and his teammates celebrated a back to back PAC-12 Championship this past weekend. 4th- 200 Back (1:41.04), 12th – 100 Back (47.24), 20th – 50 Free 20.15

Indian University

Junior Oliver Patrouch & Sophmore Jack Collins aided their team in the Big10 Team Title for Indian University’s 25th BIG10 TITLE .
Collins: 7th – 1650 15:03.75 20th – 400 IM 3:53.95 26th – 500 Free 4:24.93
Patrouch: 24th – 100 Free 43.82 18th – 100 Fly 47.45 36th – 50 Free 20.04

Williams College

Seniors Colin Hogan and Dan Needham put their work in to a NESCAS Team title.
Hogan: 2nd – 200 IM ( 1:50.08), 4th – 400 IM (4:01.60), 4th 200 Back (1:49.44)
Needham: 8th – 500 Free (4:46.40), 16th – 1650 Free (16:29.68), 200 Free (1:42.99)

William & Mary

W&M swam their way to Dual Team Titles in the CAA conference with the Men winning its third title in a row and the Women their Second in a row. W&M ‘s success was helped by senior Joe Eiden, freshman Ian Bidwell, & sophomore Maria Oceguera.
Joe Eiden: 4th – 50 Free (20.32), 2nd – 100 Free (44.25), 1st – 200 Free (138.28)
Ian Bidwell: 3rd – 500 Free ( 4:26.70,) 4th – 1650 Free ( 1537.91), 8th – 400 IM (405.18 / 3:55.65 Prelims)
Maria Oceguera: 2nd – 500 Free (4:52.14), 3rd – 1650 Free (1650.53) 3rd – 200 Fly (2:01.27)

University of California-Berkeley

Freshman Anina Lund swimming for the Bears of Berkley performed well with 21st – 1650 Free ( 16:48.45), 21st – 200 Free (1:47.77) and 30th – 500 Free (4:51.64).

Dartmouth

The Badger Trio of Joe Bernstein, Josh Hendell and Caroline Poleway swam at the Ivy Championships.
Poleway: 23rd – 200 Back (2:04.02), 24th – 200 Fly (2:06.16), 23rd – 100 Back (56.77)
Bernstein: 22nd – 1650 Free (16:04.17), 21st – 1000 Free (9:32.10), 24th – 500 Free (4:32.24)
Hendell: 15th – 1650 Free (15.41.21) 13th – 1000 Free (9:18.64), 23rd 500 Free – (4:32.60)

University of Buffalo

Senior Charles Barry Competing at the Mid American Conference Championships was 4th – 500 Free (4:26.15), 5th – 400 IM (3:53.33), and 5th – 1650 Free (15:33.37).

University of Notre Dame

Junior Richard Mannix competed for the Irish at the ACC meet with impressive swims, wining the B Final in the 500 free with 4:19.24 (Prelims 4:18.83) 19th – 400 IM 3:49.20 and 6th overall in the 1650 Free (15:07.47).

Keep an eye on swimming

In closing, we all know that basketball has March Madness. But let us not forget the Wars of Swimming that take place over February and March. Congrats to all the Badger swimmers who make us proud this past weekend!

Next up the Junior Olympic Meet, Eastern Zone meet and NASA Single Age Group Championships. Go Badgers!

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Badger swimmer Zane Grothe now the 10th fastest swimmer in the 1650 free in history.

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Zane Grothe and Cody Miller swam for Badger Swim Club at Senior Mets 2017 and had record breaking performances.

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Badger is pleased to announce the appointment of Douglas Towne to fulfill the role of General Manager of the Badger Swim Club.

A longtime Badger, dating pre 1980, Doug has a singular understanding of Badger’s traditions, and its present goals.

He will be overseeing all aspects of Badger’s swim programs.

Doug’s mandate is to identify ways to “make Badger better”.

Besides his experiences as a Badger swimmer and parent, Doug has been an integral part of Swim Across America, the NYAC’s swim team and is a coaching member of USA Swimming.

Badger Swim Club is pleased to welcome Yousun Nam to the Badger Swim Team for the Spring season.

Yousun joins us from Seoul, South Korea. Yousun is the first Korean ever to make it to finals at the Olympics where she finished 7th overall in the IM 400 back in 2004 in Athens, which was only 4 years before Park Tae-hwan became South Korea’s first Olympic champion in Beijing. Yousun is the only Korean swimmer, other than Park, to have made it to 4 Olympics (2000, 2004, 2008, 2016).

With uncertainty about how much time she has left of her career as a swimmer, Yousun wanted to make sure to try everything she could within the time given, and the first on her bucket list was to train in the United States.

Yousun said that she didn’t know much about Badger, but had heard about Coach John Collins in swimming books, articles and knew of his success as a US National Swim team coach. She trusted him because of all this and was welcomed by Badger with open arms.

I am very honored to part fo the Badger family and am having the best time of my life as a swimmer, so far! -Yousun Nam

When asked about the difference in her training experience at home and here in the US with Badger, Yousun said, “When I look back on how I trained back at home, in Seoul, I think I let myself hold back, letting my age become an excuse. I used to train only 5~6 sessions a week, about 90 minutes tops per session. I would swim 5000~6000m per session, which isn’t that much, but the intensity was quite high. I made sure I swam at least 20% of the program at full race pace everyday.”

Youson says that “Coach John has encourage and motivated me that I can be better than I ever was before, and I believe him! It feels like the first time I fell in love with the sport, and I want to make the most out of this opportunity in every way possible.”

The entire Badger community welcomes Youson and is happy she will be with us for the next several months.

Badger Swimmer, Louisa Nierhoff won all three of her events at the CeraVe Invitational. Congratulations Louisa on a great performance!

Read the full article on www.swimmingworldmagazine.com