Making Waves

Katie Kaminski and Macoy Neinas. Photos by Suzanne Rose.

DCY featured swimmers of the Week: Katie Kaminski and Macoy Neinas both had exceptional meets at the Schroeder A+ meet this past weekend. This swim meet is the premier Midwest meet of the short-course season, requiring all swimmers to comply with “A+ time standards” in order to enter. Approximately 2,800 swim events are scheduled per day during this three-day event. On Saturday, there is a prelim/final format, requiring swimmers to qualify in the morning to swim in the finals at night. DCY had several qualifiers at night.

Katie Kaminski started out her meet with the 1,000-yard freestyle event, shattering our team record by 15 seconds with a time of 10:55 minutes. She also swam her best 200-yard freestyle event, swimming it in 2 minutes flat. This time eclipsed her Sturgeon Bay High School season time.

Macoy had a fantastic meet, with best times in the 50-yard freestyle, swimming it in 22.6 seconds, 100-yard freestyle in 49.5 seconds, 200-yard freestyle in 1:49.3, 200-yard backstroke in two minutes, and a season best in the 100-yard backstroke, swimming it in 56.6 seconds. Both swimmers have very impressive times for mid-season when intense weeklong training and back-to-back weekend meets allow for very little rest.

Notes from Coach Mike McHugh: DCY Elite swimmers had a great meet at the Schroeder A+ in Brown Deer, Wis.

Back row (from left): Abigail Schauske, Ryan Ehlinger, Michael Scripp. Middle row: Race Archibald, Max McHugh, Macoy Neinas, Jared Klika, Ryan Scripp. Front row: Katie Kaminski, Spencer Klika, Brock Anue

The swimmers had “best times” in multiple events. Ryan Ehlinger swam multiple best times starting with the 400-yard IM in 4:13. This time placed fifth in the meet. He also swam a 4:50 500-yard freestyle, a 1:57 200-yard butterfly, a 53.1 100-yard butterfly, and a 2:00 200-yard IM. DCY placed three swimmers in the 100-yard butterfly event finals, top 8 ranking, in the meet. Jared Klika placed second with a time of 51.03. This was faster than his Nationals time. Ryan Scripp placed fifth with a 51.9, and Ryan Ehlinger eighth with a 53.0. Max McHugh just missed finals with a 54.1. Ryan Scripp, who also finaled in the 100 free with a 47.40, swam his best 100-yard backstroke in 55.0. DCY also had best times in the 100-yard freestyle from Jared Klika with a 48.0 and Max McHugh with a 48.8. In the 50-yard freestyle event, DCY placed in the finals, with Max taking sixth place with a 21.86 and Ryan Scripp with a 21.89. In the 100-yard breaststroke, McHugh won the prelims with a 55.6, the fastest time in the state by more than 2 seconds. He placed third at night swimming a 56.3. McHugh also placed second in the 200-yard breaststroke with a “best time” of 2:03.8. Abigail Schauske, one of DCY’s 11-12 year-old stars, swam outstanding times in the 100-yard freestyle with a 1:00.04, 50-yard freestyle in 27.8, 100-yard IM in 1:08, and a 29.7 50-yard butterfly. Spencer Klika, 13 years old, had a “best time” in the 50-yard free, 25.0. and Brock Aune, also 13, swam a 25.1 50-yard freestyle and a 56.9 100-yard freestyle. Although DCY had more than 40 swimmers that made A+ cuts, USA requires each swimmer to pay a $60 fee to join each year. As a YMCA team, we do not swim enough USA meets to justify the added cost to each family.

The rest of our DCY team, 56 swimmers, traveled by Babler bus to Escanaba, Mich., to swim at the Yooper Invite. Periodically DCY will take a bus to a meet for a team bonding activity. This is a great opportunity for our older swimmers to watch over the younger swimmers, introducing responsibility and allowing all of the swimmers a chance to meet everyone. With 130 swimmers on our team, swim practice must be held in two separate sessions each night during the week, so this bus trip was an ideal connection. The team had a blast, winning the meet handily and receiving Yooper chocolate candy bars as a prize. This is somewhat ironic, because we had a “no candy rule” for the meet. Overall, it was fantastic experience for the swimmers, although the singing on the bus was hard on the chaperones. The assistant coach, Jeff Norton, ended the night by announcing to the busload of smiling but exhausted kids, “Good thing you’re great swimmers because you’d never be able to rely on your singing voices!” All were in happy agreement as they off-loaded the bus into waiting parents’ arms.

Swim Terms:

Seed: A swimmer’s heat and lane assignment for an event. The swimmer with the fastest entry time is usually assigned to lane 4 in the last (fastest) heat.

seed times: The times used to assign swimmers to heats and lanes for an event at a meet. These are usually the entry times.

Seeding: Swimmers heat and lane assignments for each event in a meet. Seeding is done according to swimmers’ entry times.

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

Upcoming Meets:

Oshkosh Winter Open: Feb 5-8

Iceberg Meet, Wausau: Feb. 20-22

Manty Invite, Manitowoc: Feb. 28

DCY Home Meet, Sturgeon Bay: March 7