|
|
October 31, 2009 ~ Halloween Ghoul Meet Under the banner of our new name, ZAP Diving hosted its first meet of the
2009-2010 season. But seriously, since our beginning, we had the highest number of entries ever
- 29. From our novice fledglings to National-level divers, we shone
brightly in our 1st meet. the parents were stupendous as always..and we
thank you from our boogity-boogity for your generous time and support!
Injured ZAP divers Ryan Shelley and Katie Vogel, filled in admirably and coached
the younger divers. (see meet assessment and progress report at end of
meet story). Leading the way with two great performances were 11 & under phenoms, Paige Richardson and Marina Bevacqua who not only came out of the gate running, but qualified for AAU Nationals in their first meet of the season. Ther winning synchro performance was nothing short of beauty personified! Ilana Heller & Shawnae Ma were a mere 4 points away from the 130 pt national-qualifying score; Olivia Castro, only 9 and diving up in age group was super and only 8 pts away! 11 & Under Novices ~ Newbie Nathaniel Battista impressed the judges enough to win the boys event in his first meet ever, with an impressive 77 pts. And the ever-improving Calie Brady showed off her new front flip, placed 2nd and had a super score of 72 pts. 12-13 Jr Olympic Divers ~ Elizabeth McQuaid-diving up, and Jessica Langway finished 5th & 6th respectively in the always lity to perform tough 12-13 girls contest. Harder dives will bring them closer to the 205 needed for qualifying for nats. The girls showed their elegance and timing by winning the 13 & Under Synchronized Diving event with a score of 72.05 pts. Brendan Connors, another newbie, is already displaying his competitive sporit and is flirting with qualifying for AAU Nats. He won his event with 192.55 pts and is only one high d.d. dive away from garnering the necessary 205 pts. 12-13 Novices ~ 14-15 Novice The future looks good for this, our largest group of divers: Adam Siddiqui captured gold in his contest, showing his impressive full-twister and double sommy. Adam is a dive away from diving J.O. Our novice girls dominated their contest, Emily Wilkinson putting in the best performance, finishing 3rd with 131.40. After Emily our girls had some pretty close scores, placing 5th thru 11th. Paige Didona led the pack,plcing 5th with 126.75, followed by Caroline Wilkinson, Caroline Burns, Elizabeth Nardone, Kiersten Brady, and newest newbies, Elizabeth Krumsiek and Julia Herlihy. 14-15 newest novice Rachel Wein, did a superb job in her first meet ever and placed 3rd with a score of 122.00 pts. This group showed their ability to perform their basic skills and dives...which will be followed by harder dives and more complex skills. your goal should be to dive in J.O. in our Christmas meet....or at least by 2010. Are you up to the challenge?! 14-18 Jr Olympic Divers ~ If we were scoring team points at this meet, this group would have captured the most! 16-18 Boy Zachary Scott captured gold in his event. And in the 14-15 Boys event, Daniel Pires, Ethan Eckhoff and Nick Luther went 1, 2, 3! 16-18 Girls Rachel Dushman, Lindsay Scuotequazza, and Audrey Strong put in strong performances...Rachel and Lindsay not far from qualifying for Nats. Emma Jarczyk was our only 14-15 girl and she shown great improvement, first by moving up to Jr. Olympic category and second, by doing some harder dives - full twister, double...:) Progress Report and overall assessment: As
far as first meets of the season go, I would have to say that as a team, we did
a good job, but we all know that we can do better.....you should know
that you are not expected to be in top form in early Fall! We had some
expected National-level performances and some expected good novice performances.
No one did worse than what they do in practice...and this is a good sign...and a
good barometer to judge your performance by. If you new divers were
nervous, it didn't show! Areas needing
improvement:
|