Hello Lake Marion Family!

It’s time for another epic email as we close out the season. 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
• Popsicle Meet
• Banquet & Awards Night
• Thank Yous
• 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 ton of best times, and no DQs! In case you hadn’t heard, our team came in 2nd at this championship meet! This was a huge win and reflects on the hard work of the coaches and swimmers all season long! We will remain in Division K next year, and move up from the 4th seed to the 2nd seed.

Congratulations to Kayla Niemiec, Eli Hunter, and the Zhelyazlov Family for winning the final spirit awards of the season!

The following swimmers achieved All Star times on Saturday:

• Sam Arias - IM, free, breast, and fly
• Eli Hunter - IM, back, breast, and fly
• Chase Keeler - IM, free, back, and fly
• Alice Kuminov - back
• Izzy Najarro - fly
• Austin Seager - breast
• Daniel Zhelyazkov - breast and fly
• Elliott Zhou - breast and fly

Congratulations to Sam Arias, who broke her own record in 15-18 freestyle with a time of 1:03.44! She also broke her own record in 15-18 breaststroke with a time of 1:16.87!

Chase Keeler broke the 15-18 fly record set in 2016 by Kenny Afolabi-Brown, with a time of 27.13!

I would like to thank everyone who volunteered on Saturday morning. Hosting Divisionals is a huge undertaking, we rocked it! We received a ton of compliments from other teams, and that is a huge testament to all of our families. I would especially like to thank Ashley Page and Kristine Frohman for representing our team in my absence.

Popsicle Meet

We met again on deck on Sunday morning to cheer on our swimmers who participated in the Popsicle Meet! Congratulations to everyone who swam. We are so proud of you! Thank you to all of the family members who stepped in to serve as timers, and to Stacey Seager for being our Head Timer. Thank you to all of the CITs who came out to help; Stephen Ravas for being our official; Fatima Rasulova-Lewis and Monte Lewis for providing full automation for the meet; Nicole Goldsby for doing ribbons; and Alison Torres and Cindy Fuentes for organizing the morning fun! And of course, thank you to Izzy Najarro and Ellie Mikula, our preteam coaches, who supported the swimmers all season long! You can review the results by clicking here and scrolling down to the Popsicle Meet.

Banquet & Awards Night

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

First off, thank you to all of the 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!

Congratulations to Karrie & Chuck Shuttles and Beth & Fred Turner for winning the Kristine Frohman Service Award. We can’t thank you enough for the countless hours and all of the love you have poured into the team over the years. Once a Laser, always a Laser!

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

We will miss our graduating seniors - Chase Keeler, Emily Turner, and Lauren Shuttles. We wish you all the best in your future endeavors and would love to welcome you back to the pool deck next summer for a visit or two or more!

Our preteamers received a medal for their participation. Once swimmers participate in an A or B meet, they receive a goal time pin as their annual award. Pins are awarded by the highest color level achieved on the Goal Time Chart.

Congratulations to these swimmers for earning the following special recognition:

• Most Improved - improvement in time and ability
  • Sam Madden and Aiden Chavarria
• Perseverance - outstanding effort and persistence
  • Isabelle Trice and Aarnav Giri
• Spirit - team spirit and leadership skills
  • Makenna Ravas and Brett Page
• Sportsmanship - showing respect and a sense of fellowship with competitors
  • Abby Caldwell and Daniel Zhelyazkov
• Coach’s - team spirit, sportsmanship, motivation and overall attitude throughout the swim season
  • Ellie Mikula and Eli Hunter
• Excellence - general excellence in swimming
  • Sam Arias and Chase Keeler

Preteam

• Perseverance - Gwen Quinones and Isaiah Keeler
• Most Improved - Charlie Eaton and Matthew Beltran
• Courageous - Makaya Vanderpuije and George Aznar

More Thank Yous

Thank you to our fabulous coaches - Head Coach Nick Keeler, Assistant Coach Rachel Sharp, and swimmer coaches Izzy Najarro, Ellie Mikula, Melanie Falcone and Emily Turner. We were so fortunate to have such a truly stellar 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!

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 swim team summer!

Daria, on behalf of the swim committee