Something in the Water
The final weekend of September heralds change every year. The leaves are just starting to turn yellow, the temperature is starting to (finally, in this writer’s opinion) drop, and the new school year only now starts to really settle in. Thankfully, we have a staple of the NTA community to bank on: the annual NTA Shark Frenzy! Our first meet of the season flew by in a flurry of 2 days chock-full of fresh swims from Sharks new and old as coaches decked in seafoam green watched the hard work of just the first month put on display. We had packed stands full of cheering parents, hot heats, squeaky sharks, and a ton of fun! Oh baby, it’s good to be back.
By the Numbers
Despite our first meet of the season being a stepping stone to greater things to come, the following athletes went ahead and dropped time in 100% of their events anyway! While we want to emphasize the process at this point in the season, these outcomes were truly exceptional. Shout-out to the following Sharks for hitting best times in all the events they swam:
Ella An, Alex Beck, Emily Brandel, Brooks Cain, Owen, Cheng, Peyton Eisinger, Ethan Fannin, Elle Frank, Nathan Garofalo, Maksim Goldberg, Clayton Guloy, Parker Kim, Austin Laraviere, Henry Logan, Ella Michelotti, Nikolas Nikonchuk, Vivien Nowak, Tesha Nyamgerel, Mark Orban, Violet Petrovich, Declan Prommer, Leo Radtke, Quinn Regan, Vivienne Roberts, Tristan Tatlock, Ellen Thompson, Jamie Tian, Dashiel Waltz, Alexander Weber, Yana Weber, Scarlett Wessel, Ashley You, Olivia Zemon, Stella Zhou.
Our top five biggest drops of the meet by percentage came from the following swimmers:
- Ethan Albers dropped an absolutely absurd 24.35 seconds in the 50 back for a massive 33.72% drop! A huge congrats to Ethan for the biggest drop of the meet!
- Charlotta Dudeck dropped 27 seconds in the 50 breast AND 13 seconds in the 50 free to claim the second and third biggest drops of the meet!
- Ella An swam a massive 100 back, dropping 34 seconds from her previous best!
- Nora Chukiat swam an amazing 100 back herself, also dropping 34 seconds!
Demonstrating their commitment to the process and consistency, club veterans
Will Baumeyer and
Charlie Sears each competed in their 6th Shark Frenzy meets last weekend. We can measure their wildly significant improvement over that span, but can only speak to what good teammates and young men these two have become over their many years on deck.
Looking Ahead
This upcoming weekend we’ve got a blank competitive slate. No meets to look forward to until we hit the following weekend of October 9th, when we split up! You can follow the action as NTA heads out to our first road meets. Over at Northwestern we’ll be having some “Fun in the Wild”, and in St. Charles we’ll be taking on the “Fall Classic.” You can bet that all our Sharks will be hard at work taking some valuable first-meet feedback over the next two weeks, and looking to make some adjustments to swim even smarter, sharper races next time. Until then…

#GoSharks #FinsUp #BetterEveryDay
