Sectional prelims were suppose to be on Thursday night of last week, but due to the snowstorm that came in overnight on Tuesday, school was cancelled Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday and the prelims were postponed until Friday night with the finals scheduled for Saturday. Then, as many of the counties around us stayed in the "red" due to the hazardous roads, a couple of the schools couldn't make it over on Friday so that pushed the prelims back to Saturday with the finals scheduled for Monday. Things seemed a bit stressful for a while as the girls wondered how the two days out of the pool would affect their swims and what it would feel like to swim championships on Monday night rather than a Saturday morning, and honestly, there wasn't a whole lot that Noel or I could do about it because we cannot change the weather, that's for sure! They did feel a little bit better after they were finally able to get into the pool on Friday for a normal practice. In fact, Morgan came home really excited and full of energy and said that she had one of the best practices all year and was ready to go. When I asked Marissa about her practice, she quietly mentioned that her shoulder was really hurting but she didn't want to talk about it and so we just let it go. We'd find out soon enough how it would all turn out.
On Saturday morning, I had to be at the high school around 8:30 to begin scoring for diving and then the girls arrived around 11:00 to get dressed and wait on deck for their warm-up time. They swam laps and practiced starts. They were laughing and joking around. They were a good mix of nervousness and excitement and soon enough, after a team cheer, it was time to get into the pool and start racing.
Marissa was listed as an alternate for all three of the relays, but she didn't swim the first medley relay on Saturday in the prelims. They just needed a mix of swimmers that would place them high enough to get them into a good lane in the championship heat and that is what happened so Marissa would rest from that event on Saturday and move up and swim in the finals on Monday night.
Marissa was up to swim the second event however... her 200 freestyle. She went into the prelims seeded third based upon her best time of 2:03 but she didn't need to "race" on Saturday for anything except a good enough time to get into the championship swim on Monday night and she finished with a 2:08. She admitted that she thought she was swimming a bit faster than her time showed because she easily won her heat, but she said that she knew she had held a bit back because she only needed to swim fast enough to get into the final and that's what she did. She also reminded me that everyone else in the race was "suited up" in their fast tech suits and she wasn't. (Part of the head game towards the other swimmers, I guess). I was still nervous that it was a bit more than that and that maybe her shoulder was bothering her more than she let on, but neither Marissa nor the coach seemed concerned so I just didn't say anything more about it.
After the race was over, she got a fist pump from the coach but you can see slight disappointment in her facial expression.
After Marissa finished her first event, Morgan would come up for the 200 IM. She was feeling pretty excited about this event and although she ended up swimming three seconds slower than her PR from NLC finals, she put herself in a really good position heading into the championship race on Monday. Again, that's all that she needed to do, so we'll definitely take it.
Marissa and Sarah were so excited to see their friend from last year's team who was able to come home from college to time and cheer them on!
With the first two events under their belt, there was a quick 10 minute break so everyone could warm up again before the second half of the meet would begin. As soon as the warm up time was over, Morgan would be back in the pool for the 100 butterfly.
And as soon as she was back out of the water, (after advancing to the championship race), Marissa was back up to swim the 100 freestyle, where she went into prelims seeded first according to the predicted times, which we weren't really all that excited about actually. I know that this seems strange to some because who doesn't want to be seeded first, but to me, that put a target (and a lot of extra pressure) on her back. I think she personally swims better when she's chasing someone down and so I was secretly praying that she wouldn't finish first on the day. I think Marissa must have agreed to an extent because if you are still seeded first after prelims, you get to pick a song and then everyone parades out to it for the finals. Marissa didn't even think about a song. She said that she wasn't going to go there unless she had to because she was fine being the "underdog".
'Guess all of our secret wishes came true, because despite swimming a fast (to her) time, she ended up qualifying in the third position -- and the girl who was now seeded first swam a 56.8, which if she swam that time in the finals, it would take Marissa's all time fastest swim ever to beat her. The challenge had now been laid down and now Marissa knew what she was dealing with.
Now, with the individual events completed, both girls would swim in the 200 freestyle relay together with Morgan leading off the race and Marissa anchoring it home. Morgan was so afraid that she'd get them behind right from the start, but she did awesome, swimming a great split and they were in first place at the exchange. I think the team kept the lead all through their prelim swim and Marissa finished it off still in first place. There were two other quick teams in a second heat, so we'd find out where they really stacked up in the finals on Monday night.
Morgan would come back at the end of the night to swim first in the 400 relay as well and finished off her prelim swims.
All in all, it was a good day, considering the week they had just gone through and the cancellations and the postponements. They may not have swam to their best ability on Saturday, but they did enough to save spots in the prelims and Monday was a new day / meet. It was time to go home, eat a good dinner and try to get some sleep.
