In the wise words of Elle Woods, “We did it!”. We all made it through the craziest year of our swimming life and we finished our age group swimming up at the Texas Age Group Championships (TAGS).
We had 23 Individuals qualify TAGS events, and had 15 swimmers attend as Relay Only swimmers. We clinched the 2nd place spot with a total of 1530.5 Points!! We had 3 Individuals take the top spot in one or more events and were crowned the “Best in Texas!!” Congrats to Aliana Marakovic (200 Breast), Saylor Hale (100 Breast, 200 IM, 50 Breast), and Lyla Lusk (100 and 200 Back, achieving Sectional Cuts and 13-14 cuts all as a 12 year old)!
We had three 14yr olds attend their last TAGS meet, and we want to take a moment to send an extra THANK YOU to those kids and their families for their commitment to Nitro over the years. Thank you to Kaden Alarcon, Bailey Covington (who moved here this year from Greensboro, NC), and Adriana Klaas!
Now onto a few highlights that stood out from the weekend:
Who knew we were a breaststroke team!? This weekend stood out specifically because of the races like the 10&U 50 Breast where Nitro went 1-2-3 (first time ever!!) by Saylor Hale, Tinley Harrison, and Sophie Jones and not to be overshadowed by Hannah Pecze (now nicknamed the Wolverine) and Aliana Marakovic who were seeded 2nd and 3rd in the 13-14 yr olds and ended up going 1-2 with times right on Jr. National time standards. Both Hannah and Aliana are somewhat new to Nitro, and we couldn’t be more proud to have them rep the N!
We all love the 10&U’s at TAGS, because they are so new to the sport and experiencing TAGS is always so much fun. We had Austin Masri and Saylor Hale who both ended up swimming 15+ races over the course of 4 days. As well as swimmers like Kyan Nguyen or Sophie Jones who had 1-2 events but ended up dropping 3+ seconds and making it back for finals!! Tinley was another point scorer for our 10&Us and scored a whopping 34 points. Marjorie was able to swim her first individual events at TAGS and ended up making finals in her 50 Fly!
The 11-12s were so focused throughout the meet and were there to do a job. We had Sabrina Defranco make her 50 Free TAGS time last week and made it to the meet and finaled in it, no biggie, right?!!… Swimmers like Kyle Lee competed in the 200 IM and 200 Fly (woof!) and ended up going some best times. Ben Liang scored 36 points for the team and finished TAGS strong dropping 4.5 seconds in his 200 Back for a 5th place finish. While Sophia Nguyen ended up attending her first TAGS for a individual events and ended up with a few time drops as well. Olivia Pena, a veteran TAGS swimmer came to swim her 200 Breast and was one of the best cheerleaders at the meet!
Simply put our 13-14 Swimmers were amazing. We had great captains out of Kaden Alarcon, Adri Klaas, and Hannah Pecze. They were joined by Bailey Covington (Backstroke Baller and quite possibly the most charismatic kid- made friends with everyone, even from other teams), Gannon Flynn (kindest kiddo and we specifically loved his 200 IM!!), Steven Ma (very versatile this weekend and stepped up on the relays!), Oliver Rowe (who has been to 8+ TAGS!, dropped 5 lifetime bests), Hannah Seal (first tags ever!!) and Kai Funaro (welcome to Nitro! Just moved from New York, and jumped right in to the craziness that is Nitro). Coco Proctor first tags 100/200 back, drops in 200 back less than a week out from her high school state meet where she was best time in 100. She was the glue that held us together, helping everyone with a smile.
We always make note of how amazing our Relay Only Swimmers are. We had families and swimmers drive 6 hours round trip for a :30second to 1:00 minute race. We can’t begin to explain how amazing you all are and how your commitment is the reason Nitro is so successful.
THANK YOU to: Grady Bell, Sienna Chozick, Reese Dodd, Brooke Frushour, Miguel Gomez, Lauren Higgins, Elise Morrison, Kevin Mulligan, Elise Nguyen, Oliver Ozanus, Kaitlyn Phan, Daniil Prokazov, GG Sitter, Sophie Struck, and Cody Yount.
NITRO RELAYS!- Clap, Clap, ClapClapClap!!!
10&U Girls
400 Free Relay – Marjorie Hochard, Sophie Jones, GG Sitter, Saylor Hale —2nd Place
200 Free Relay- Marjorie Hochard, Sophie Jones, Tinley Harrison, Saylor Hale — 3rd Place
200 Medley Relay-Lauren Higgins,Tinley Harrison, Saylor Hale, Marjorie Hochard–1st Place
10&U Boys
400 Free Relay- Kyan Nguyen, Kevin Mulligan, Oliver Ozanus, Austin Masri —2nd Place
200 Free Relay- Kyan Nguyen, Reese Dodd, Kevin Mulligan, Austin Masri — 2nd Place
200 Medley Relay- Kyan Nguyen, Daniil Prokazov, Austin Masri, Reese Dodd— 4th Place
11-12 Girls
400 Free Relay- Sabrina DeFranco, Elise Nguyen, Sophia Nguyen, Lyla Lusk –2nd Place
200 Medley Relay Lyla Lusk, Elise Morrison, Brooke Frushour, Sabrina DeFranco
200 Free Relay- Sabrina DeFranco, Sophia Nguyen, Elise Nguyen, Lyla Lusk— 2nd Place
400 Medley Relay- Lyla Lusk, Sienna Chozick, Brooke Frushour, Elise Nguyen—2nd Place
11-12 Boys
400 Free Relay- Ben Liang, Kyle Lee, Grady Bell, Cody Yount — 2nd Place
400 Medley Relay- Ben Liang, Kyle Lee, Miguel Gomez, Cody Yount—4th Place
13-14 Girls
800 Free Relay- Hannah Seal, Hannah Pecze, Adri Klaas, Aliana Marakovic —4th Place
400 Free Relay- Adri Klaas, Sophie Struck, Kaitlyn Phan, Aliana Marakovic — 10th Place
200 Medley Relay- Coco Proctor, Hannah Pecze, Sophie Struck, Aliana Marakovic — 6th Place
400 Medley Relay- Coco Proctor, Hannah Pecze, Sophie Struck, Aliana Marakovic— 4th Place
13-14 Boys
800 Free Relay- Oliver Rowe, Steven Ma, Bailey Covington, Kaden Alarcon — 2nd Place
400 Free Relay- Oliver Rowe, Steven Ma, Bailey Covington, Kaden Alarcon—3rd Place
200 Medley Relay- Bailey Covington, Gannon Flynn, Oliver Rowe, Kaden Alarcon— 1st Place
200 Free Relay- Kaden Alarcon, Steven Ma, Gannon Flynn, Oliver Rowe — 4th Place
400 Medley Relay- Bailey Covington, Steven Ma, Oliver Rowe, Kaden Alarcon—1st Place *
Nitro Proud!
