The Hurricanes at Big Ben Woods

Back row (left to right): John Lindsey Douglass, Michael Kennedy and Sydney Carr. Front row: Connor Fitzgerald (who swam in his first meet) with coach Nate Sizemore; Laura Halliday (who also swam in her first meet and was part of a winning relay team) with coach Kate Doneff; and KC Kuehl, with coach Michael Kubik.

Here is John's report from last night Meet:
"We had a great meet last night, even though we came out on the short end of a 306-263 score. The meet was close all the way, until Big Bend Woods pulled away in the relays. We were a little short-handed and many of our swimmers put out an exceptional effort. We had two young swimmers who participated in their first meets and placed.

We had at least two noteworthy performers (and probably more that I don't know about), in addition to our Swimmers of the week. William Kruger gave a terrific effort, even though he was suffering from a bad ear infection. You could tell Will was not healthy because you seldom see him without that great grin, and he was hurting getting out of the pool after his races. Because we were short-handed, we asked Mason Roethler, who is 11, to take a leg in the 15-18-year-old medley relay. We didn’t win the race, but Mason gave a great effort swimming up two age groups. It takes a lot of courage to do that and without him, our relay team would have been a scratch. Michael Kennedy, one of our SoW, had to bounce back from a pretty ugly knock in the noggin’ to swim a leg in the 11-12 medley relay. The starting blocks at BBW are at the shallow end of the pool and Michael got a close-up view – like forehead and nose meeting the bottom of the pool view -- when he dived in the first time. He was not quite the Michael we know for a time after that but hung in to swim the freestyle and then the medley relay, the last event of the night. I know there were other swimmers who rose to the occasion, as well, and our hats are off to all of you.

One last note to report from Monday night. Many of you knew that Teddy Phelan spent Sunday and Monday back and forth between home and the hospital emergency room because of severe headaches and other troubling symptoms. We missed Teddy and his sisters last night and were glad to see him up and around at practice today. All appears well at the moment and we’re grateful for that.

On to the Blue & White and then conference."