MACS at the Olympic Training

Center

MISSION AURORA COLORADO SWIMMING

COACH ANDY Congratulations to all MACS swimmers on a great finish to the fall/winter short course season. A busy last month saw many MACS swimmers stepping up and finishing with great races. Thank you to the coaches, swimmers, and parents for their hard work this year. We look forward to a successful

spring/summer long course season. Thank you to Pam Malik, our meet director, and all of the volunteers who helped make our

Fall and Winter Invitationals so successful. The meets were well run and a positive experience for all swimmers. Also, thank you to all of the experienced and new officials who have volunteered to help insure that we continue to run great meets and contribute to the swimming community. MACS will host two smaller Suburban League meets this summer at Pier Point. The dates are June 14th and July 19th.

We appreciate your patience with the schedule changes at Eaglecrest. Fortunately these changes are only temporary. We expect to return to our earlier and regular practice the 1st or 2nd week of May. We will notify everyone as soon as we are informed by the school district. Also, our summer schedule will begin June 2nd. Schedules will be e-mailed and posted on the website.

The Sectional group is beginning to prepare for the busy long course season and early competitions at Jeffco and Tops. We are also looking forward to a three day training camp at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs April 4-6. Please remember that the long course season goes by quickly. Be sure to sign up for meets on time and take advantage of the opportunities to compete this spring and summer.

Meet Schedule Mark your calendar and check with your coach for details about our Meet Schedule. Page 3

MACS Championship Swimmers List of swimmers and the highest meet qualified. Page 6

Thanks to Officials A special thank you to our volunteer crew of USA Swimming Officials. Page 7

Board Updates News and happenings from the MACS Board of Directors. !Page 8

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COACH CATHERINE Here we are at the end of another season! Our age group swimmers finish up the short course

season with Silver State February 28th-March 2nd and State March 7th-9th. The swimmers are geared up and ready to go. I have started to cut back on the amount of swimming we do in practice as we continue to sharpen skills in preparation for a great season ending meet. We will see awesome swims in the next two weeks and have a lot of fun at the championship meets.

This has been an impressive short course season for Groups 3 and 4. Attendance has been excellent this year with sixteen out of twenty one swimmers over 90%. It has definitely shown in their technique improvements and race time improvements. Every swimmer has had a successful season and learned a lot. Every swimmer has had breakthrough practices and enhanced

skills that will make them stronger and smarter swimmers. I just reviewed goal sheets and the athletes accomplished so many of their practice and meet goals. I am proud of all of you!! We had almost 30% of the group age up to a new age group during this season and still ended up with 16 individual event state qualifiers (Udheesh Gaddipati, Juwon Hong, Nicholas Korn, Ellie Lopez, Miller Vu, Carlos Almeraz, Olvia Brenneman, Blythe Iverson, Jasmine Johnson, Matthew Johnson, Meghan Mai, Jonathan Martin, Jenna Newkirk, Patrick Piwko, Lyssa Wood, Cobi Wood). We have three Group 3 and 4 swimmers competing at Silver State for their finale this coming weekend (Kate Arnold, Chloe Burkholder, and Eric Salwa) and 9 more swimmers going for part of the meet. This past weekend at Loveland I was impressed by the maturity of the swimmers in their races. Confidence levels were high and the swimmers made themselves proud. I rested the swimmers who were close to making new qualifying times and they really went for it. Now with that confidence we head into the final two weeks of racing. I am excited to see the results of the group after all of the hard work they have put in together since September.

As we go into the final meets please remember encouragement and positivity go a long way. I will say the tough stuff (as well as the positive), and I need parents to offer the hugs and let them know how much you enjoy watching them swim. If a child has a tough race they need to be able to stay motivated, and since they have put so much heart into this sport they can become disheartened easily.

COACH GREGORY Hello Group 2! We had a very exciting winter season. For the very first time in many years, we had three 10 and under relays at our State Championships for both free and IM. We had excellent attendance at both meets and practice, and this was reflected in our season end performance. As we enter long course season and there are many distractions, please work to keep up the good attendance. Long course swimming can be a challenge for younger swimmers and the best way to prepare is with consistent fitness.

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COACH UPDATES

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Welcome New Swimmers! (since Sept. 2013) Andrey Bagaryan, Garrett Barner, Rahul Biswas, Coral Brogan, Kyle Brushaber, Emilia Carlson, Sydney Crouthers, Scott Crowner, Aleksander Czyzowicz, Ganerdene Enkhbayar, Dennis Domashevich, Avery Farrell, Tessa Fostvedt, Sawyer Inglis, Truman Inglis, Blythe Iverson, Garrett Iverson, Veronica Keff, Payten Kilgore, Matthew Long, Ella McGonigle, Nicole Mazurkiewicz, Vince McCush, Kathryn Mulholland, Roxy Sharza, Taylor Tonkinson, Alexander Ulasewich, Vanden Vicars, Lana Vu, Meagan Walker, and Darius Zeerak. Thank you for swimming with MACS!

COACH LAURA It has been such a great season so far! The first meet was a little crazy for everyone...  A few swimmers missed their races, had quite a few disqualifications, and a few tears.  It's amazing how far we have come since then!

    At the Loveland meet Group 1 and Mini Macs combined for 88 best times and only a handful of DQ's!  It was so much fun having swimmers on deck cheering and celebrating each other's successes.  

I had several swimmers close to making their silver state times which was very exciting!  A lot of swimmers tried some new events that would have been a huge challenge for them at the beginning of the year.  Coral Brogan and Josie Minnehan

pushed their limits by doing the 200 free and 200 IM and did amazing in both!  Sebastian Piwko swam his very first 100 fly and was only a couple seconds off the silver state time!  

It's great for swimmers at this level to get a little experience swimming some longer events.  It takes awhile to really learn how to swim the longer events and it makes the shorter events seem a little bit easier.  

Attendance has been pretty great all season and it definitely shows in how everyone is swimming!  Mini Macs swimmer's are all pretty close to being able to do butterfly and are going to be working a lot on learning breaststroke.  

In Group 1 we are working on improving our turns and doing some longer sets to help increase their endurance.  Having good attendance is really important to learn these new skills and to keep improving through the spring and summer!  

We have one more meet left before spring break and it should be a little smaller and tons of fun!!  I can't wait to see how many more best times they can get!  I am so lucky to have such a great group of fun and motivated kids! GO MACS!

UPCOMING MEET SCHEDULE

Meet Location Dates Groups Deadline

Suburban League Pentathlon Meyers Apr 13 All past

Tops Spring Open DU Apr 25-27 2 & up past

Jeffco May Open Meyers May 16-18 2 & up past

Jeffco Summer Open Meyers June 6-8 2 & up soon

Suburban League Qualifier Pier Point June 14 MM,1,2,SR3 TBD

FAST Open Fort Collins June 20-22 Qualifiers TBD

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Coach Catherine continued Fear of failure sets in and is probably the hardest thing for an athlete to overcome. Also, please remember swimming takes an incredible amount of internal motivation so focusing on external rewards does not typically create internally motivated athletes in the long run. Of course in competition placing and awards are a motivator and we all want to win, but the effort and journey are what offer the biggest pay off. The coaches are always thinking long term, and I know as a parent that is harder. There will be so many ups and downs along the way, and it is truly a long amazing journey in this sport. We want to be sure that the kids are physically and emotionally ready for each step along the way. Each swimmer is ready for different things at different times so we measure their success differently. At this point everything we do is preparation for later on and we see success in many ways not just making times or placing. Those successes are important to keep swimmers happy and motivated and they are certainly one focus, but they are not the most important things for the younger athletes. Learning to love swimming and practicing smart and hard are the number one secrets to swimming fast when they are senior swimmers. They need to have fun racing at meets and enjoy the competition. The swimmers who figure these things out are the ones who do the best when they are older. In our sport it is

most often the late maturing athlete who ends up on top. This is statistically proven and it is important that we make sure those swimmers who are not at the top at 12 and under know this and keep going without pressure to be the fastest before they are physically ready for that. Year after year in USA Swimming’s top 100 senior swimmer rankings there are very few swimmers showing up who were ranked as age group swimmers. This is the reason USA Swimming stopped nationally ranking 10 and under swimmers a few years back. That is not to say you cannot be a fast 10 and under and continue on to be a fast senior swimmer. I can name many athletes I coached who did continue that path because they learned to work hard and love swimming. They knew their time drops would take longer to get as they got older because they were already swimming such fast times, and they did not get discouraged or quit. They understood that other swimmers as they matured later would have bigger drops and catch up and join in the race! So it takes all of us involved to keep the great swimmers who do not know they are great yet in the pool, and also to keep those who mature earlier in their

swimming to stay with it as they get older. These are big topics in USA Swimming, and I feel it is important to pass on to parents. We need to be on the same page so we can keep all of our young athletes who love

swimming in the pool for the duration regardless of how fast they are right now. !

As we finish the season, I want to say thank you to both the parents and swimmers for your dedication to MACS this season. I have had a fun and challenging season and enjoyed it so much! I am really looking forward to long course season. We always accomplish so much during the summer when the kids are out of school and really focused and excited. Long course swimming and racing is important and great experience for the swimmers. It is preparation for them as they get closer to senior level swimming where long course goals become primary. Please remember that the season goes quickly and the meet entries come out early. Colorado swimming has grown so large that the meets fill up very quickly. I will have them out as soon as I get them and turn around will be short. Please sign up as you need the experience of each long course meet to prepare for the end of the season. It always takes the first couple meets to get used to racing long course again. We are still working on the summer schedule. We are waiting on the long course pools schedulers to get us the open times. ! The team, with the exception of Sectional group, will go on spring break the week of April 1st-5th. It is important for them to have this break away from the pool and come back refreshed and ready to go. I really suggest not swimming during this time as they will come back more excited that way! ! Thanks for another awesome season with your children; I value every minute with them!! !Catherine

COACH UPDATES

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USA SWIMMING

WE ARE AMERICA’S SWIM TEAM from USASwimming.org

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Championship Meet Swimmers: (listed at highest meet qualified if they attended more than one) !Silver State: Kate Arnold Chloe Burkholder Garrett Iverson Eric Salwa Everett Urban Vanden Vicars !2014 14 and Under State Team: Carlos Almarez Olivia Brenneman Lawson Ficken Udheesh Gaddipati Nathan Gibbs Robert Hall Juwon Hong Sawyer Inglis Truman Inglis Blythe Iverson Jacob Johnson Jasmine Johnson Matthew Johnson Nicholas Korn Brandon Li Vickie Liu Ellie Lopez Meghan Mai Amy Martin Jonathan Martin Chris McAninch Jenna Newkirk Zach Newkirk

Griff Orloff Joel Orloff Patrick Piwko Edouard Sagilyan Rose Saya Danny Vesselovskii Miller Vu Claire Whitner Cobi Wood Lyssa Wood !Girls’ High School State Qualifiers/Participants: Sami Daniels Allyson Malik Olivia Morley Jane Rowland April Wood Mia Wood !2014 Colorado All-Star Team: traveled to Kansas in January Rose Saya (All-Star champion in the 500 free!) Ellie Lopez was an alternate for the 10 and under girls. !2014 Sectional Team (will travel to Seattle, WA) Timmy Martin Juhan Hong Derek Liu Jonah Saya Joe Waite Riley Hufford Sami Daniels

Claire Martin Kristyn Bobka Olivia Morley Rose Saya Hannah Bradford !2014 Western Zone Select Camp Rose Saya was selected as one of the top 13 year old girls in the Western Zone to attend the Western Zone Select training camp in Arizona this May. She was selected based on last summer’s long course performances. This is a big honor for her! !Junior National Qualifiers: Hannah Bradford (also a USA Swimming Scholastic All-American) Juhan Hong !US Open Qualifier: Juhan Hong !

Summer Practice Schedules

The MACS Summer Practice Schedules are now on the website. The link is on the main page at MACSSWIM.com or under the Groups tab. Contact your coach if you have any questions. Also, directions to Lowry Pool are also on the website under the About MACS tab. !Like MACS on Facebook

The MACS Splash is the primary team communication tool but the team Facebook Page is a great place to connect with other MACS fans. Check out the team page for meet updates, shared photos, swimming news, and more! Visit http://www.facebook.com/macsswim and ‘Like’ MACS today! !!!

TEAM NEWS

Visit the MACS Website for the latest team news!

www.MACSSwim.com

Championship Meet Swimmers

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FUNDRAISING CORNER !MACS participates in the SCRIP program to help families earn their fundraising dollars on normal, everyday purchases. The reloadable King Soopers card has been a huge success and easy way for many to fundraise. Every time you reload your card, you earn 5% towards your MACS fundraising. The money on the card can then be used for groceries or fuel! Questions? Contact Mary Lou Waite at dmlwaite@msn.com.

Coach Gregory Cont. !In addition, I would like to welcome 7 new swimmers to my group. I am looking forward to working with these youngsters, along with my previous swimmers, in the months to come. !Lastly, keep in mind that long course season is very short. This is another reason that consistent attendance is so important. Also, it is crucial to attend meets because there are not as many opportunities during long course season to get qualification times. !Keep up the excellent work! !Coach Grzegorz

TEAM NEWS

Thank You !On behalf of the team, please join us in offering a

HUGE THANK YOU

to our volunteer USA Swimming Officials… we could not do it without you! !If you are interested in helping with this important and fun role, please contact Larry Malik. !Thank you again!!!

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MACS SWIM-A-THON The MACS Swim-a-thon is one of our largest annual fundraisers. With your support, the team has made significant improvements to the facilities at Pier Point (Boiler, roof, locker rooms, and more). This year’s Swim-a-thon will help the team resurface the parking lot and purchase floor mats between the pool and locker rooms. Half of the funds raised will be directed to these projects and the other half will count towards your fundraising requirements. Thank you and GO MACS!!!!

For more information, visit the MACS Website. A special Swim-a-thon tab has been set up with details about how to set up a personal website, fundraising

tips, a Q&A, and more!!

www.MACSSWIM.com!

Board Updates !Hello from the Board. !This is just a short message to let you know what the board has been up to this year. !As another short course season comes to an end and long course is about to begin, we are happy to be holding strong at 130 amazing swimmers. !Let’s start with repairs/upgrades at Pier Point.  Our first repair was completed by Coach Andy and our long term board member Bob. They spent hours sanding down all the supporting beams to the bubble and then painting them with a rust proof paint. We then added a light to the far end of the pool which was greatly needed. We also replaced the boiler room roof and club house roof.  Next, Bob is planning to change out the back door to one with a window so swimmers can see through it.  And last but not least, we would like to get mats for the girls and boys locker rooms so that we can get our swimmers up off the wet/cold cement. All of these repairs/upgrades are pricey and would not be possible without our volunteers and our team support through fundraising.  It is primarily our Swim-a-thon that enables us to get these important things done.  Please see more details on our upcoming Swim-a-thon in this newsletter. !One of the most exciting things that happened this year was the increase in our number of OFFICIALS!  We had been relying on the same five for many years, which is way below the USA requirements for a team our size.  Thanks to Susan Bobka and the board, we got many new parents to sign up and become officials.  Thank you all. !Communication is key to running a team this size and we do all this through our website, emails, and Facebook.  If you have not liked our Facebook page yet, please do, as you may see a great picture of your swimmer on there. We try to post pictures from swim meets and even keep up with our college swimmers, so check it out.   !As always, we welcome anyone to our board meetings which are held on the second Wednesday of the month at Pier point at 7:30pm.  We would love to hear from anyone, so please join us or send us an email.  All the board members’ numbers and email addresses are on our website, so don’t hesitate to contact us.

BOARD NEWS

Event Details: Date: Saturday, May 10thTime: 9 AMLocation: Pier Point

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TEAM PHOTOS

Go M

ACS!

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MISSION AURORA COLORADO SWIMMING 3869 S. Atchison Way Aurora, CO 80014

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