Hi Team,

Congratulations to all the Gators yesterday on an awesome day of swimming! Your impressive performance at Westfield puts us at 3-0 on the season!

1st place: Nelson Farm

2nd place: Westfield

3rd place: Ridgewood Hills

Results are attached.

Below are a couple takeaways that I'll talk about with the team tomorrow morning, but wanted to share here for visibility:

Nicest team

• Positive — we absolutely crushed the sportsmanship yesterday, both with our teammates and with the other teams. Great job!
• Opportunity for improvement — we had some Gators get in trouble by Westfield volunteers for messing around in closed off areas. We had this issue at Village Green as well. We also left the Nelson Farm team area very messy — there was trash everywhere. Thank you to those who stayed behind and helped clean up. We need to do a better job of representing Nelson Farm at away meets so teams want us back.

Funnest team

• Positive — from the team cheer, to celebrating relay wins, to eating candy with friends, I saw a lot of smiles and laughter yesterday. 
• Opportunity for improvement — there were a handful of swimmers getting upset about not qualifying for state championship. Yesterday was tough because Westfield chose to announce state qualifiers after every event (which if you were near me at all yesterday along the pool, you know made me furious). Remember two things: 1) That's not why we swim or what defines success at Nelson Farm 2) We're not supposed to be doing our fastest swimming yet, it's much too early — we're aiming to peak for City Meet. 

Fastest team

• Positive — collectively, we continue to dominate as a team; individually, everyone continues to drop time in their events.
• Opportunity for improvement — we need to improve on the little things that make a big difference (e.g. turns, finishes, not getting DQ'd, relay starts, etc.) We'll hit these areas hard after the 4th of July break.

Thank you to all our awesome parents for supporting your swimmers at these meets!

Looking ahead:

• Gator Week part II resumes tomorrow! All OG's need to be in the gator pit at 6:15 am Mon 6/30, Tue 7/1, and Wed 7/2. Normal practice times for Caimans and Hatchlings.
• Thursday, 7/3 we'll have a fun, relay practice to celebrate the 4th of July -- more info to come soon.
• No practice Friday, 7/4 and no meet Saturday, 7/5

Go Gators!

Coach Kyle