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DCY Featured Swimmers

Danica Neville and Drew Rass. Photos by Suzanne Rose.

Swimmer’s Bio: With great swims in our home meet, we honor two young swimmers this week: Danica Neville and Drew Rass. Both attend Southern Door School.

Drew has qualified for the YMCA State Championships in several events and is a member of our 200 yard Freestyle and 200 yard Medley State relays. He is able to swim and excel at all four strokes.

Danica is a member of our State Relays, with six events within 1-2 seconds of qualifying for State cuts. We expect her to swim very well this weekend at sectionals and get these time cuts.

Coach Mike McHugh Notes: This is a very exciting time of the year for DCY, with 47 swimmers qualifying for State. With very difficult time cuts, we have now surpassed our set team goal of 40 swimmers to qualify. We are very pleased with the outcome so far and with one swim meet to go, this will give DCY swimmers one last shot at possibility qualifying for State.

This is a difficult time for coaches and swimmers, alike. Several swimmers are within 1-2 seconds of State cuts, and some will not make them. This is hard for all of us to absorb. Add to this the choices we, the coaches, have to make concerning which swimmers will comprise relays and you can see the possibilities for disappointment.

The DCY coaching staff has talked to the team about personal best times and setting personal goals all season with the goal of State Cuts at the end. Although this is difficult for some swimmers to achieve, it is far better to try for these goals rather than settle for less.

Competing in the Wisconsin Swimming Championships this past Friday, several of our swimmers posted best times and top 10 finishes at the meet. This is the largest meet in Wisconsin each year, with the best swimmers from high school, YMCA, and USA swimmers competing.

Featured USA State swimmers, from left, Ryan Ehlinger, Jared Klika, Max McHugh, Ryan Scripp.

Ryan Scripp placed 4th in the 200 yard freestyle with a 1:42.8, Jared Klika placed 5th in the 100 yard butterfly with a 50.4, Ryan Ehlinger placed 9th in the 100 yard butterfly with a 53.5, and Max McHugh won the 100 yard breaststroke for the 2nd year in a row with a 55.8. This was an impressive achievement for McHugh considering that he raced both Division 1 and 2 High School State Champions.

Not Pictured: Katie Kaminski and Race Archibald also had impressive meets. Race had 4 personal best times in the meet.

Our home meet this past weekend was a blast, with 90 of our swimmers competing and 11 new State cuts. We are off to Oconomowoc on March 20 for our Sectional meet, with the State Championships the following week.

Swim Term: taper – The final recovery phase of a training plan before an end-of-season championship meet. During taper, the swimmer reduces the intensity and length of workouts in the weeks or days leading into an important race. This allows the body to fully recover, or repair itself, from the training of the previous weeks and months. Some athletes will taper only once a year. Others will taper two or three times a year.

DCY website: teamunify.com/Home.jsp?team=widcy

Upcoming Meets:

• 2015 Wisconsin YMCA Sectional Championships: Oconomowoc, March 14-15

• 2015 Wisconsin YMCA State Meet: Brown Deer, March 20-22