This one is for our parents! Attached is a newspaper clipping Don found a few months ago.

Old as the hills, still just as true…

“Always remember the distinction between contribution and commitment. Take the matter of the bacon and eggs. The chicken makes the contribution. The pig makes the commitment.”

NBA Ladies take the podium at Waikiki Rough Water Swim. There were over 800 racers at the event and three of our master’s swimmers finished in the top 100 of a field that included US and Australian Olympians.

Abby Pledger 1st in the 45-49 division
Andrea Salmi 1st in the 55-59 division
Deb McFerron 3rd in the 50-54 division

Congratulations, Tuna!!

Registration is open for our Youth Team! Anyone interested in swimming with our youth swim team should contact Coach Max at max@northbayaquatics.org

NAPA

Avery was dropping time in nearly every event – her 100 fly saw a 7 second drop for only her 3rd time swimming it long course

Aahana swam a 200 fly and said it wouldn’t be her last, she was tough through that and her other races

Zoe Collins swam in her first long course meet and was able to figure out some of the pacing/strategy in the big pool

Raymond had a crazy good meet – dropping a ton of time in multiple events and following it up again at RESL with some great short course swims (almost under a minute in 100 free and 30 in 50 fly!)

Piper swam in her last meet with NBA before moving to Southern California and dominated some breaststroke races

Nate swam in his first long course meet with NBA and went out fast and hung on in his 200 free, showing us that may be a really awesome race for him in the future

Across the board: solid meet, even with not a ton of LC training or rest swimmers showed up ready to fight and ready to race. Really solid support amongst the team – some of the most cheering I have seen for each other

JO

Cameron joined us after being on the east coast, and finaled in her events, plus was an event winner in the 50 back

William – across the board great swims, but a highlight was a huge drop in his 400 IM, finishing out the meet with a win and epic 100 freestyle at the end

Sophia finaled in her 50 back and had a solid time drop

Zane dropped in every event at his first ever JO’s and picked up cuts for his next age group. He also dropped an insane amount of time at RESL meet (42 seconds in his 400 IM and 29 in 500!)

Mckenzie’s brothers brought her for one day of racing where she swam great in both the 100 and 200 free – making some Western Zone times

Every swimmer pushed themselves at this meet – a new pool, far away, and still able to challenge themselves. Lots of final swims and best times

RESL

Zoe Cass Lein – broke 1m in the 100 free and also seemed to drop time in every single race…. Even in finals after having huge drops in the morning

Hannah broke a minute for the 1st time in her 100 free, and dominated in some breaststroke events despite coming back from sickness the week before

Kate swam in her last ever RESL (tuna for life!) and has solid swims all around

Nicolo after just joining us figured out some things and tried new events – huge drop in his 200 free

Sierra had amazing races at Napa and followed them up with drops in most events at RESL as well

Dean had solid swims – particularly 100 back and 100 fly

Fiona rallied from an early DQ to capture high point at the meet – having some great swims across the board

Owen won his 100 back and came about as close to breaking the 1:00 barrier as you can come… 1:00.01

KK started the RESL meet with a huge drop in her 200 IM and rallied to win other events throughout the weekend

Always fun to race short course after a summer of LC racing – across the board we saw fast swims and NBA did really well despite a smaller than normal crew. Across the board lots of fun was had and swimmers swam a LOT – both prelims and finals

FW

William “Chilly” Canori was busy all weekend, racing the 200 Back (5th place) 400 IM (2nd place) 200 Free (1st place) 400 Free (1st place) and the 1500 Free (1st place). After this meet chilly is knocking on the door of a few Sectional cuts now in the long sprint freestyle events!

Fiona “Fifi” Bell with a strong showing at the meet, especially in the short sprint freestyle events where she made finals (100 Free 8th place and 50 Free 4th place)

KK O’Connell was very strong in her 50-butterfly coming within a few tenths of her best in the event to secure 3 points for NBA in her 7th place finish

Sophia Swanson was awesome in her first Far Western, racing the 50 Fly, 200 Back, 50 Back, 100 Back, and 50 Free! Her highest finish came in the 50 Back, just shy of her best time, good for 11th place and knocking on the door of a finals appearance

Super League

Beautiful tune up meet for our senior group in Santa Clara about 10 days out from our championship meets.

Lian Jeong Engle & Harry Parsons started off the first session with their first ever Futures cuts in the 50 Freestyles. Tristan Lu was right behind them swimming his first ever Sectional cut in the event. The next day in the 200 Free Relay Kallen Wank lead off one of our relays in her first ever Sectional cut!

Julia Thompson kept things rolling on day 2 with a new Sectional qualifying time in the 100 Back.

Riley “Conklinator” Conklin was busy all weekend showing up in 4 finals thanks to dropping in every single swim of the meet

Ali Kosmowski put together some great 200 Freestyles with 2x 2:18s thanks to a strong kick on her third and fourth 50s

Zones

Chloe Firmage bounced back in a big way during her 200 Breast time trial. After swimming a 3:02 in the event a few days prior, she reswam the 200 breast at time trials and put together a stellar 2:56. Big things coming from this girl in the fall

Lexy Lewis was wonderful all weekend despite a heavy event program. She put up best times in a majority of events for the first time in a few years and walked away with 3 appearances in finals

Addie Fiscus put together a great end to her season and kept battling all weekend long, coming very close to a finals appearance in the 50 freestyle after a swim off. She ended the meet with 4 best times!

Skanda Dorbala swam a great meet despite having to go visit family for a few weeks just prior to the meet. Skanda swam best times in about 50% of his swims and was very close in all of his events

Futures

North Bay finished Futures weekend with 8x individual top ten finishes (Emma Bean 1x, Marre 2x, Lila 3x, & Augusta 4x) including a win in the 100 free for Lila! Our girls also took home 5th place overall in the meet thanks to our 400 free relay finishing in 5th and 400 medley relay finishing 6th.

Micah Sher & Bryce Roberts collected their Summer Juniors qualifying times in the 50 Free. Micah’s best time came in a 4 way swim off where he finished in a 23.80

Coco Quill was a star all weekend, dropping every time she raced. She was rewarded with a 100 Breast time trial on the final day to cap off a well-earned stellar season!

Awesome seeing Mia Solomon get better as this meet went along. She swam a 1:17 in the 100 breast on day 1, time trialed the event on day 3 for a 1:16, then split a really big 1:14 for our medley relay on the final day of the meet.

Annabelle Mullin was great in the backstroke events, making finals in both the 100 & 200. She capped off the weekend with amazing performances in the 400 Free relay and 400 Medley relay, helping NBA score points in both events!

Harry Wait was awesome in all four of his races, including an amazing 2:01 in the 200 Free. Always fun watching Harry when he goes into turns behind his heat and pops up a few seconds after everyone else way ahead, just like in his 200 Free time trial vs. NBA alum Jackson Mason

Juniors

Fun week in Orange County for Jordan Ash & Lila Heffernan!

Jordan swam in the 100 butterfly and put up her 2nd fastest time in the event ever despite her stroke not feeling connected in warmups. She also broke 27 in the 50 free for the second time in a time trial

Lila raced 6 times at the meet, with a 11th place finish in the 200 Free & a 10th place finish in the 100 Free swimming under the National qualifying time for the second time in less than a week. She also raced in the 50 Free & 200 IM on the final day of racing!

Tahoe Crossing

Sophia Bell started her Lake Tahoe Vikingsholm (10.6 miles) crossing at 3:34am on Monday August 8th. The water temp ranged from 68-70 degrees throughout the swim. She was not allowed to wear a wet suit. She was not allowed to touch her support boat. When she needed nutrition it was thrown to her in the water. Her first few feed stops the bottles had glow sticks in them so she could find them easily in the dark.

Unofficially, Sophia is the fastest woman to ever do this marathon swim. Her time was 4:37:17, beating the women’s record by nearly 49 minutes and finishing 6-7 minutes off the overall record. I was lucky enough to kayak next to her for the last 2 miles. When she passed by me the first time she yelled during breaths, “Is…That…Max??” Her crew told me she had been talking a majority of the swim.

It was inspiring to watch Sophia on this swim. If you ever have a friend or family member doing an ultra endurance event, I highly recommend being there for some part of the event. Congratulations and thank you Sophia Bell!