2004 Year in Review

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Seventh Place With Seven Swimmers

By: Lindsey Smith
Morrison traveled down to Rock Island on September 11 for the 27th Rock Island Relay Invite. This swim meet gives the swimmers a chance to have fun. It’s not a normal swim meet. Every event that usually is swum at a meet was a two-person relay (i.e. if a swimmer was in the 50-yard free, they’d have another team member swimming it with them. This would make it a 2 x 50 relay). The relays that were normally in meets were also there, as a normal relay. These were four person relays (i.e. 200 medley relay). The Fillies had high expectations for this meet and many of them were met.

The Fillies started out the early afternoon with a 12th place finish in the 200-yard medley relay. Michelle Bos started out the relay for Morrison with the backstroke leg. She handed off to Christina Justice who dove in for the breaststroke. Christina held the Fillies at 12th and touched in at the wall for Lindsey Smith. Lindsey swam her butterfly leg, and in dove Kendra Kuehl. Kendra finished the race for Morrison in 12th place. The relay’s time was 2:23.32.
The next relay put Michelle and Christina right back in the pool. The second event in back-to-back events is tough to swim a best time. Michelle and Christina had maybe a minute rest before Christina dove in for her lead off leg in the 2 x 200 free relay. Christina’s 200 split was 2:39.18 before she reached in for Michelle to go. Michelle finished out the relay with her own split of 2:34.45. Morrison finished in 9th place in the event, 5 seconds ahead of the 10th place finishers from Peoria High.
The next event was the one two swimmers from Morrison dominated the past year. Amanda “Smiley” Smith and Rachel Fedyk won the 2 x 50 relay at this meet last year also. As seniors, they won with a time of 49.88, almost a second faster than the next closest swimmers from Ottawa.
After a 15-minute break for everyone at the pool, the meet resumed. The next event up was the 2 x 100 butterfly. Swimming this event for Morrison was sophomore Lindsey and freshman Jamie Grau. They finished 4th with a time of 2:23.62. They were just over a second away from medalling at third place.
Amanda and Rachel came back to the pool in the next event, 2 x 100 free, looking for more gold. They got what they were looking for by three seconds. This was also the third year in a row that they won this event. Their final time was 1:50.77. Ottawa, the same team of two the followed Morrison in the 2 x 50, finished in second again. Their silver time was 1:53.72.
Instead of waiting for two swimmers to swim the 500-yard free each, like what would have happened if it followed the pattern of the meet, Rock Island put in a race called the Crescendo. In this race, one swimmer does a 50, the next does a 100, then another swims a 150, and finally the anchor finishes with a 200. This adds up to 500, so Rock Island uses this event instead of a 2 x 500. If they didn’t do this, one event would take a half hour for each heat. There would have been two heats of the 500’s.
Swimming the Crescendo for Morrison were Jamie, Michelle, Christina, and Lindsey. Jamie led off the relay swimming a 50 free. She had the Fillies in 7th when she handed off to Michelle. Michelle’s 100 was strong. She touched in for Christina in 8th place. Christina swam the 150 for Morrison. She dropped to 9th before kicking into the wall for Lindsey to go. Lindsey held the Fillies at 9th for the finish. The clock stopped when Lindsey touched the wall at a time of 5:49.32. Morrison was eight seconds behind Rock Island and ten in front of Macomb.
Rachel and Amanda weren’t satisfied with two gold from the meet. They earned a third in the 200-yard free relay. Kendra and Jamie joined them for this event. Morrison won by about half a second. Pleasant Valley came in second. The Fillies final time was 1:44.71, a season’s best so far. Amanda led off, leading the pool of competitors by about a second. Kendra swam the second leg, where she kept the Fillies tied with about three other teams before Jamie would dive in. Jamie also stayed with the field of competitors and gave Rachel about a hands length led. Rachel anchored and brought the gold home for Morrison.
Kendra had little rest before her next event. She swam the 2 x 100 yard backstroke with Lindsey. Kendra, after swimming her best split of the year so far in her leg of the free relay, swam a 1:18.00. She reached in on her back and Lindsey dove in. Lindsey’s split was a 1:10.87, placing the Fillies at 8th. Their final combined time was 2:28.97.
In the last event of the afternoon, Morrison sent Amanda and Rachel to work again. Jamie and Kendra again joined them for the 4 x 100-yard free relay. Amanda led off the relay, swimming the 100 in 56.46 seconds. She handed a second place exchange to Jamie. Jamie’s split was 1:02.16. Off of Jamie’s third place exchange was Kendra. Kendra also gave up a little ground to leave Rachel at fourth place on the dive. Kendra’s split was 1:02.43. Rachel gained on all the swimmers ahead of her, but she was too far back to catch any of them. Morrison finished the relay in fourth place with a final combined time of 3:56.83.
The Fillies finished the meet in 7th place out of 12 teams. They only had seven swimmers at this meet. Their final point tally was 116. The sixth place team, Galesburg, had 131 points. U.T. was the eighth place team with 102 points. The winner of this meet was Pleasant Valley with 202 points. Good job Fillies!

by larryg
2004-09-26 21:23:33