This week marks the beginning of spring, and last weekend (3/19-3/21/99) brought the beginning of Long Course swim season. Swimmers gathered at the National City pool for a small, productive and enjoyable meet.

FAST swimmers produced many personal best times, team top five performances and a few new J.O. cuts.

In the 10&Under Girls, Kendra Plackemeier got her second J.O. cut, this time in the 100 meter butterfly. She also won her age group in the 400 meters with an excellent time of 6:00.77.

Drew McIlvain (10&Under Boys) went 3:32.54 in the 200 IM, 2:59.40 in the 200 Free, and 2:04.45 for the 100 Breast, for a set of nice, solid performances.

Lindsay McIlvain (11-12 Girls) won five out of six events, with outstanding times in all of her swims. She went 19:40.27 for the 1500 meters, which would put her second on the FAST all-time top five, if she was she was old enough to make the list! She also swam 800 meters in 10:30.46, 200 IM in 2:47.92, 200 Free in 2:27.17, 100 Breast in 1:32.62, and 200 Fly in 2:48.57.

In the 11-12 Boys division, Matt Martinez swam 3:01.39 for 200 Back, 3:02.02 for 200 IM, 2:39.43 for 200 Free, and 1:34.30 for 100 Breast (second on the all-time FAST list). He also swam 800 meters in 11:49.23 on his first try at the distance.

Bryce Cullinane came through with three team top fives in the 13-14 Boys Age Group. His top five’s were 19:20.67 1500 Free on Friday night, a 5:54.44 400 IM on Saturday, and a 2:47.35 200 Back on Sunday. In between those events, he had a number of other events to keep him busy. He swam 35.32 in the 50 Fly, 35.68 for 50 Back, a 5:05.34 for 400 Free, 48.62 for 50 Breast, and finished the meet with a 10:17.82 for 800 meters Freestyle.

The 13-14 Girls were well represented by Nicole Martinez, Amanda McGaugh and Ashley McIlvain. Nicole competed in a total of eight events over two days. She started her meet with a solid 6:04.96 for 400 IM, about two and half seconds off the J.O. cut. She also swam 50 Fly in 37.81, 50 Back in 41.08, and 50 Breast in 44.01 (all of the 50’s are not standard events for the 13-14 age group). Nicole also swam 2:57.90 in the 200 Back and 3:19.37 in the 200 Breast. She finished Saturday with 5:19.08 for 400 meters Free and ended the meet Sunday with a 10:55.96 for 800 meters.

Amanda swam 1500 free in 20:02.98 on Friday night. On Saturday, she began the day with a 400 IM in 6:08.94, followed by the 50 Fly in 38.31. She completed her Saturday with a 5:10.38 for 400 meters. Amanda’s Sunday began with the 200 Fly (2:53.54) and finished with a 10:29.37 800. All of her events were personal bests, and the 1500, 800, and 200 Fly were team top fives.

Ashley also had a fine meet, with team top fives in the 1500 meters (19:59.83) and the 800 (10:29.26). The race between Ashley and Amanda in the 800 was particularly exciting, with the two swimmers going stroke-for-stroke for the entire distance, and Ashley winning at the touch by 11-hundredths of a second. Ashley also swam 45.39 for 50 Breast and 3:12.12 for 200 Fly.

This week, we have three swimmers swimming in the Short Course Far Westerns in Pleasanton: Danny McClary, Lindsay McIlvain, and Kade Davis. Information about the meet can be found at http://www.pacswim.org

On Saturday, Lindsay finished 16th in the 500 Free with a 5:34.00, improving her personal best and team record. Her splits were 1:02.54, 2:10.02, 3:18.58, and 4:27.22. Kade also improved his team record in the 11-12 50 free with a 25.74 for tenth place. Danny had two personal bests, a 1:28.12 for 100 Breast (23rd), and a new team record of 1:14.96 in the 100 Back (12th).