Zone III is a lot of energy, chaos, and confusion in a confined environment. I hope everybody survived with their health and sanity intact. I myself feel pretty good. A fellow coach told me if I could make it through that meet, I can make it through anything. I am inclined to agree. The first day was especially tough being that exactly one month before I was on the operating table as warm-ups were going on. It was a goal of mine to be at this meet as a starting point to getting back to some semblance of normalcy (if you can call going to meets like this normal). When Jane M and Nancy B presented me with our special NBA cap, I can't tell you how touched I was (and still am - I have become very sentimental). I am lucky to have such a great group of supporters - so many great friends. Thank you, Thank you! A note to all you swimmers - Please don't lose those caps, otherwise I will be getting calls from various pools telling me they have found my lost swim cap and could I come and get it. I will also be checking on EBay occasionally to see if anyone has put their cap up for sale (definitely a collectors item).

STATS---We came in third place as a team, scoring a few more points this year compared to last. Over half of our swimmers (33) scored in the top 8 individually. We had 7 Zone Champions led by Sally Bellinger and Stephanie Christofferson winning 3 races apiece. Other Champions were Aoife Duffy, Edward Focha, Bridget Konttinen, Jo Jo Winkler, and Dillon Moscone.

PERFECT MEETS--- The following swimmers had meets where they recorded best times in all the events that they swam. Not an easy accomplishment and definitely worth noting:
Lindsay Bettinger
Victoria Brown
Stephanie Christofferson
George Healy
Heidi Gayman
Lillie Konttinne
Laura Slater
Rachel Louie
John Wright
Overall by my unofficial calculation, we achieved 61% new best times as a team.

TEAM RECORDS--- Sally Bellinger established 3 new 13-14 girls team records at the meet. Her new records were in 50 free (24.96), 100 free (53.97), and 200 breast (2:37.25). Stephanie Christofferson made her first NRT with her 200 breast (2:36.14), the current team record for girls 200 breast. Other board swims were established by Nicole Lung (13-14 200 fly), Dillon Moscone (11-12 100 back), Stephanie Christofferson (11-12 100 breast), Jo Jo Winkler (8 under 50 breast), and Owen Moscone (8 under 50 fly). This is Owen's and Nicole's first time on the record board. Congrats to all!

QUAD MEET--- Sally Bellinger and Stephanie Christofferson have been selected to represent Pacific Swimming at the annual Quad meet. This year it will be held in Washington state on January 24th and 25th. All Star teams from Southern California, Northern California, Washington, and Oregon will be competing. Good luck to both swimmers.

WELCOME BACK---Two of our esteemed swimmers, Lexie Jordan and Annie Chisholm swam their first swim meet in a year after recovering from some training injuries. While both are not at 100% they are certainly approaching that point and will soon be there. It is gratifying to see them up there competing again and a testimony to all their hard work and dedication (with none of the glory that meets bring to look forwrd to) over the past year. They both did quite well and now that they have broken the ice, should start really making headway toward reaching their goals and potential.

COOL MOMENTS---There always some memorable moments at long swim meets - too many to list them all, but two seem to stick out in my mind. Both occurred during last set of relays on the last day. Most of our team was gone and rightly so. We were swimming the 13-14 girls 400 free relay and were right next to the Neptunes who were quite strong and had the best swimmer at the meet (and one of the best in the nation) as there anchor, Amanda Sims. My thoughts were we would probably get a close second in this race. Sally B, who was trying to swim three races in 30 minutes, including a 500 free would be our anchor. I only hoped that we wouldn't just have a slight lead and that a tired Sally would have to try and race Amanda. As it turned out, the girls in front of Sally, Heidi Gayman, Lexie Jordan, and Lyndsie Dellaria all swam well and we had a surprising 6 yard lead. Sally had a whole lot of adrenalin going for her and Amanda couldn't make any headway on her and we won by about the same 6 yards. I was very inspired by the effort of that relay.

A few moments later the boys 13-14 400 free relay was held. We were definitely in over our heads competitively with our 13 year old boys swimming against some fully developed men teams. It was a long wait to be in that race and one of the members, Chris Packer, asked to go first in order to take a shot at breaking a minute for the first time. At the end of that long meet, he swam with great determination and concentration and did a 59.0 as his split. It was a highlight for him as well as for me. It just goes to show that you don't have to have the glory of a win or even a place to do great things for yourself and your team.

Congratulations to all, and thank you! It is good to be back.
Ken