Transcript
With us on Coach's Corner K to BBG, gonna talk some Boon Girls Swimming, Chris Mann joining us, Tori Doors, really nice victory last week over Grinnell and Williamsburg on Tuesday. And Coach, girls did not have a meet last weekend or this past weekend, I should say. And so you get ready for I Know Johnson, which is gonna be a big one on Saturday. Carol's coming up, but I wanted to go back to last Tuesday. You know, I guess an opportunity to just get yourself a little bit better. And man, your depth was amazing last week. Yeah, you know, that's something we pride ourselves on this year is having some tremendous depth and just having so many girls that can fill spots, wherever we need it in the lineup, any event, any spot, varsity, JV, girls moving around. And yeah, that meet was a good chance to showcase that. And we had a lot of relays that, you know, one, two-ish in the standings and the relays. And a lot of individuals going one, two, three, or two, three, four or whatever that may be. And so, yeah, I think every meet we've gone through this year has been a showcase of our depth. And hopefully that continues on. It's been a real strength for us. I don't even know where to start, coach. She had so many really outstanding times and stuff that I'm looking at. I guess I kind of wanted to talk about Ashlyn Burkhart. I'm not sure we've talked about her a ton so far yet this swimming season, but I thought Burkhart had a real nice night for you. Yeah, she's been doing awesome. You know, Junior for us in the past, she's been, she's from Madrid. So she's been split cross country and swimming. And this year decided to just focus on swimming. And it's really showing off. I think the start to her season was a little bit slower, but she's really coming on strong now and had had a good 500 over in Grinnell, an event she doesn't get to swim too often, but was really excited with that. I think she had like a 31 second time drop and has had some really good practices lately. So really excited to see what she turns in the next couple of meets. 500 yard freestyle is never an easy event, coach. Morgan Cox comes up with a victory. Tell me about Morgan a little bit to what you saw that night and how she's kind of been contributing. Yeah, it's definitely Morgan's favorite event. And we've had some battles with that this year and, you know, her not being happy with her times. And we went into it with a different strategy before that race. And I said, just don't worry about swimming the first half too fast. Just try negative split and make your second half faster than your first, which is really unheard of, doesn't typically happen. She held onto that strategy and her first half was three minutes and her second half was 258. And that paid off for the girl. I think the girl was up to like an eight or nine second lead on her at one point. Morgan just 50 by 50 just kept reeling that girl in and ended up passing her with about, oh, 75 yards to go. And our girls were just going nuts on the end of the pool and they could see it happening in real time as she was gaining and gaining. And man, she was just super excited. And kind of one of those swims that gave me goosebumps a little bit because it was not a best time, but it was definitely a breakthrough swim on her season. So she was really pleased with that. Well, and it seems to be something else. And I know I just talked about depth a little bit, but it came alive again in the hundred yard backstroke and Claire and Finley take it one and two. And I thought pretty good times as well, coach. Boy, one and two in events. I mean, that's where those points start to pile up, but looked like a pretty good night for Claire and Finley overall as well. Yeah, I mean, talk about two girls who, I mean, along with a lot of our other swimmers can just swim about anything. And that you put them in and very competitive and have that drive. And backstroke isn't necessarily either one of their super strength. It's not their worst event, but we challenge girls every time they get on the block to just show up in race and be competitive. And their ability to do that time and time again, just yields good results. So I'm seeing girls like that with the state experience, swimming events that weren't their state events and just compete and showcase our team on a high level is fantastic. Chris, when you're going through the meet, obviously you're busy trying to figure out where everybody's supposed to be and make sure they're there too. But when you sit down afterward and you're looking at all, I mean, there was so much stuff we could still talk about. I mean, we could talk about the four in a yard freestyle. We could talk about the 200 yard freestyle relay. I mean, there's a lot of other stuff that I didn't even bring up yet. But when I guess my question, when you sit back at the end of the night and you're kind of looking back through this, you got to pinch yourself a little bit, don't you? Yeah, I mean, it's a little overwhelming. Sometimes it meets this year with 28 girls competing and you're looking at 112 swims a night. And so it's hard to give each of those swims the individual recognition it deserves in the moment. And so you can get to a few of those as the meets go on because the meets moving pretty quick as well. But when I sit down and get to look back at times and compare to their best time or their season best time, it's just really rewarding as a coach to see that our plan is working, our progress is where it needs to be at the stage of the season. And we just have a whole group of girls that buy into our process and believe that what we're doing works. And it's just a lot of fun when that shows. Chris, you guys were off this past weekend. You get Carol coming up tomorrow night and then Johnson this weekend. Take me through the week after being gone on Saturday or off on Saturday, I should say, to tomorrow night. And then, boy, this looks like a pretty competitive meet as I'm looking at who's gonna be there on Saturday. Yeah, so I mean, we were able to finally have a practice on Saturday, which we haven't had for a while and get a real nice practice in there and connect that into our Monday. So we'll practice twice on Monday pretty hard. And then Carol tomorrow night, the dual meet. And so we have some girls swim in some, some of their primary events, maybe some of their secondary or weaker events. And a couple girls that need a tune-up race before, yeah, we have a really big invite on Saturday. 11 teams going on Saturday and you're looking at Waukee and Waukee Northwest and Ankeny and Johnson and Dowling. You know, those are all top eight teams in the state. And so, and a lot of other teams that we should be right with and maybe slightly ahead of. And just a very high-key meet that is really our main tune-up for the end of the season. So a lot of girls really excited to get up and go on Saturday and use that as kind of a practice run for the regional meet, I would say. What a bunch of teams though, coach. I mean, this is, this is, I don't wanna call it state, but I mean, this is like almost a preview of, I guess a mini-state, is that even fair to say? Yeah, I mean, you're looking at the top three teams in the state, plus like number five and number six, or number five and number eight, something like that. And so, just some very strong competition, but it's so valuable for our swimmers to be able to see and our divers to be able to compete against these girls that we don't see on a typical basis. We try and keep our non-invite schedule more of similar-sized schools. And when we see some of these bigger schools, you really see the talent and depth that they have. We think we have depth and we look at some of these other schools and it can feel a little overwhelming at times and we like to get that feeling out of the way. You know, we like to go and show up and swim so that when we go to the regional and state meet, we have experience in those big meets and that really has bowed well for us in the past and should again this year, hopefully. Chris, as always, thank you so much for some time. Best of luck Tuesday and as well as Saturday and we'll talk to you again here in a couple of weeks. Yeah, thanks Ryan. You bet, Chris Mann again, joining us Boon Girl Swimming Coaches Corner.
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