Hello Lake Marion Family!

As a reminder, please park in the upper lot for raft and splash this evening as the gym was booked for basketball prior to us booking our event. Thank you!

And now on to the rest of this morning’s epic email. It was great to see everyone who attended our banquet and awards celebration last night. I can’t promise that this is the last email you will receive this summer, but I can promise that it will be the last long one! ;)

Here’s what’s included:

• Divisionals 
• All Stars Representation
• Popsicle Meet
• Banquet & Awards Night
• Thank Yous
• Raft & Splash Reminders
• End of Season Survey

Divisionals

Congratulations to all of our swimmers who participated in Divisionals on Saturday morning. We had some amazing swims, including a lot of best times and top three finishes. Our team came in 4th at Divisionals and we placed 4th in our division overall. We will remain in Division K next year!

Congratulations to Catherine Silva, Tyler Niemiec, and the Falcone Family for winning the final spirit awards of the season!

The following swimmers achieved All Star times on Saturday:

• Maddie Arias - breast
• Sam Arias - IM, free, and breast
• Vincent Burakiewicz - free
• Eli Hunter - breast
• Chase Keeler - IM, back, and breast
• Evan Lehman - IM, free, and breast
• Kien Nguyen - free and fly
• Austin Seager - IM and breast

Congratulations to Sam Arias, who broke her team record in 15-18 freestyle with a time of 1:03.69! She also broke a Quail Valley pool record of 1:21.12 with her second place finish in 15-18 breaststroke with a time of 1:17.69.

Chase Keeler tied the Quail Valley pool record of 1:03.06 in 15-18 IM with his second place finish and broke the Quail Valley pool record of 1:02.46 with his 1st place finish in 15-18 backstroke with a time of 1:00.95!

All Star Representation

Our boys freestyle relay came in first at Divisionals and had the best time this season, so they will compete at All Star Relays on Saturday, July 29th. Congratulations to Tanner Seager, Eli Hunter, Vincent Burakiewicz, and Kien Nguyen for your lightning fast swims! They will join our 13-14 Boys Medley relay team who won at the relay carnival.

We will also have two swimmers at Individual All Stars on Sunday, July 30th. Sam Arias is currently seeded 16th in the 15-18 100 M breaststroke and Austin Seager is currently seeded 17th in the 13-14 50 M breaststroke as an alternate.

Popsicle Meet

We met again on deck on Sunday morning to cheer on our littlest Lasers! Congratulations to all of the preteamers who participated. We are so proud of you! Thank you to all of the CITs who came out to help; Nelson Hunter for being our official; Fatima Rasulova-Lewis and Monte Lewis for providing full automation for the meet; the preteam coaches - Izzy Najarro, Melanie Falcone, and Ellie Mikula - who supported the swimmers all year; and Nicole Goldsby, Alison Torres and Cindy Fuentes for organizing the morning fun! Check out the meet results on our team’s website.

Banquet & Awards Night

It was so great to see the team in their Sunday best yesterday evening to celebrate the season. There are so many thank yous and congratulations to share!

First off, thank you to the assistant and swimmer coaches (and their helpers) for all of the time, energy, and thought they put into each of the swimmers’ paper plate awards. A huge shout out to Karrie Shuttles for coordinating the festivities! And Chuck Shuttles created an amazing senior slideshow as well as a slideshow from all of the pictures the team posted to Cluster!

We will miss our graduating seniors - Jacob Arias, Cameron Clagett, Juliana Gacuma, and Sophia Hoover. We wish you all the best in your future endeavors and would love to welcome you back to the pool deck next summer!

Once swimmers practice with the team, they receive a Lake Marion letter and a goal time pin as their annual award. Pins are awarded by the highest color level achieved on the Goal Time Chart. If you already have your LM letter, be sure to add your newest pin to it. If you received your letter last night, keep it in a safe place to add your pin to each year. And as you saw last night, your letter will be needed again in your senior year!

Congratulations to these swimmers for earning the following awards:

• Most Improved - improvement in time and ability
  • Izzy Trice & Andrew Niemiec
• Perseverance - outstanding effort and persistence
  • Kayla Niemiec & Peter Perry
• Spirit - team spirit and leadership skills
  • Elly Taylor & Ricky Najarro
• Sportsmanship - showing respect and a sense of fellowship with competitors
  • Andi Gacuma & Cameron Clagett
• Coach’s - team spirit, sportsmanship, motivation and overall attitude throughout the swim season
  • Sophia Hoover & Austin Seager
• Excellence - general excellence in swimming
  • Sam Arias & Chase Keeler

Preteam

• Perseverance - Vivianne Weimer & Aiden Chavarria
• Most Improved - Skylar Barredo & Noah Assing
• Courageous - Dylan Jenkins & Oliver Murad

If you missed the banquet, we will have your awards and unclaimed ribbons at Raft & Splash. If you can’t make it to Raft & Splash, never fear. You can pick up your items from a box on the porch at these homes:

• From TOMORROW until July 30th - the home of the Najarro Family - 7829 Heritage Farm Drive
• From July 31st through August 7th - the home of the Turner Family - 7511 Oyster Bay Way
• After August 7th: the home of the Najarro Family - 7829 Heritage Farm Drive

Thank you to all of the volunteers who helped last night with set up, serving, clean up and preparations. And a huge shout out to Mike Page for being our master of ceremonies last evening!

More Thank Yous

Thank you to our fabulous coaches - Head Coach Jorge Silva; Assistant Coaches Rachel Johnson, Rachel Sharp, and Andrew Caldarera; and Swimmer Coaches Jack Mikula, Izzy Najarro, Melanie Falcone and Ellie Mikula. We were so fortunate to have such an amazing coaching team at Lake Marion this summer!

Our team couldn't function without the time and efforts of so many volunteers. Thank you to everyone who volunteered this season. From setup and take down, to concessions, to automation, to awards, to timing and all of the other behind the scenes work - we could not have had such a successful season without all of you!

Raft and Splash

We are excited to celebrate the end of our season with our annual Raft and Splash pool party from 5-8 PM this evening. See Karrie’s email with all of the details!

Please park in the upper lot as the gym was reserved for basketball before we booked our event. Bring cash to purchase deeply discounted drinks, candy, and snacks. Be sure to bring your own dinner as well!

As a reminder, Raft & Splash is for registered Lake Marion Laser families and coaches only - no additional guests please. In order for non-registered family members of swim team families to participate in raft and splash, we will need parents to print, sign, and bring to the event this waiver form for each non-registered family member. Without a signed waiver form, the non-registered family member will not be able to participate.

End of Season Survey and Feedback

Thank you for reading to the end of this email! It has been an amazing season - that isn’t quite over yet until All Star Weekend concludes - and we look forward to next year. Please be on the lookout for our end of season survey that Chuck Shuttles will send to you in the near future. And please feel free to share any feedback you have about the season with any committee member so we can continue to grow next year!

Thanks for a fabulous season!

Daria, on behalf of the swim committee