What a GREAT weekend! Our Swimming and Diving team certainly stepped it up this year as our very young girls team (2 juniors, 2 sophomores, 3 freshmen and a sixth-grader!) jumped into 11th place - following a 33rd-place finish in '07 - and really turned some heads at the State Championship Meet. Meanwhile, our boys team - 18th a year ago - leapfrogged fifteen teams to finish #3 in the State! Along the way we earned a number of All-American accolades and even notched the first team record since the turn of the century.

Boys Team Rocks
Five senior boys - three with previous state championship experience - paced the Scots with some outstanding relay swims. Seth Weil scored a bronze in the 50-yard freestyle with a 21.07 and earned himself an automatic All-American standard. He also anchored the Scots 200-yard freestyle relay (20.85) following Bert Posess (22.23). Wali Toulson (21.70) and Wyatt Pechter (21.88). The Scots earned their second relay bronze with that performance and the time of 1:26.66 was under the automatic standard for All-American status AND broke the school record - the first school record of any kind in many years ... but by the looks of things it certainly won't be the last.
The first set of Bronze medals were earned in the 200 Medley Relay and were draped around the Scots foursome of Ramon Walton (back 24.88), Quinn Cassidy (breast 27.10), Wali Toulson (fly 24.96) and Seth Weil (free 20.57). That final time of 1:37.51 was within three tenths of a second of being guaranteed status as All-Americans so those young boys will have to wait until late spring to see if they earn their certificates. Ramon Walton and Quinn Cassidy each scored in two events - Ramon posted a 52.66 in the 100 fly and finished 13th there to go along with an 11th place 100 back (54.86). Quinn notched a 1:58.56 200IM and scored 13th before coming back to win the Consolation Final in the 100 breast (9th place) with a 1:00.13. Young Dylan Richman (7th grade) contributed a pair of points with a dynamic fifteenth place performance in the 1-meter diving. The event that sealed the top three team finish for our Scots was a fifth-place finish in the 400 freestyle relay at the end of the evening. Wali Toulson (49.15), Seth Weil (47.11), Ramon Walton (49.17) and Sebastien Aube (50.08) did the honors before heading off to a fine team dinner.
Young Girls Serve Notice
Not to be outdone our boys, the young girls turned some heads on their own in Orlando. Six different girls returned for swims in their individual events and some very fine times were posted in many of those swims. Genevieve Aube blasted to a 57.74 100 backstroke, well within the AA consideration standard, as she earned a seventh place finish. Vicki Ho contributed individually in the 200 free (1:56.53). Amanda Ford returned for two swims at night as she scored in both the 200 (1:57.84) and 500 (5:12.15) freestyles. Megan Moroney created a stir as the only 6th grade student in the state to score (59.44 100 fly) and Amanda King produced a 5:10.28 performance in the 500 that also returned points. Emily Norton made her states debut in the consolation finals of the 100 breast (1:08.79) to round out the individual scoring.
However, much as was the story in the boys meet, the relay events allowed our girls to come together as a team and really shine. The preliminary effort of the 200 freestyle relay was noteworthy in that we dropped nearly two and a half seconds off our seed time to qualify fifth in the all-important Championship Final heat. Vicky Ho (24.86), Genevieve Aube (24.19), Riley Shipman (25.70) and Amanda King (24.96) surprised the field from an outside lane as an exciting preview to the evening's finale. It was the girls in the 400 freestyle relay - out in lane 8 at night - the last team to sneak into the heat with the big points in the last event of the night - that we will long remember as we plan for future Championship Meets. With a revised strategy that sent our accomplished sprinters out in the front half, our girls electrified the SAS faithful by dropping more than four seconds off their preliminary effort. Vicki Ho led off with a personal best of 54.10 to Genevieve Aube - usually accustomed to the anchor leg, Gen's 53.61 earned us some clean water in a battle with Lake Highland and the Episcopal Eagles from Jacksonville. Amanda King turned a 55.24 before handing the duties over to our youngest member, Megan Moroney. Facing experienced senior sprinters in the next two lanes seemed only to energize Megan as she rose to the challenge and refused to allow either team to pass as she scorched a 53.85 split- nearly three seconds under her previous personal best. Our girls earned sixth place points and with all members returning next year, we have already begun planning for the 2009 assault.
What Next?
The beautiful thing about our sport is that you can enjoy it all year round ... and many of our Scots are planning to join our Saint Andrew's Swimming club team for the Winter Championships (this weekend in Plantation) and the Palm Beach County Club Championships (December 13-14). In addition to that we are looking to celebrate the entire season with all swimmers, divers, parents, fans and friends as we hand out our awards. We are looking at December 5 or 6 and have been considering the Siegel Room on campus for a meal and some camaraderie. We can consider alternatives and either way will announce the plans this week.
Thanks again to all the support we received from parents, friends, and the Administration at Saint Andrew's. We are truly building something special here and 2008 will go down as a memorable year in advancing our growth.
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