Your Hargrave Tigers came out of the Thanksgiving break excited and ready for a challenge as they traveled to Fork Union Military Academy on Tuesday, November 30th. Here’s a recap of the meet, courtesy of Head Coach, Amanda Weishaar!
It was a fun and interesting night for everyone! 9 swimmers traveled the 2 hour trip to FUMA (Fork Union Military Academy).
There were 5 teams in attendance – Woodberry Forest – D1 School; FUMA – D1 School; North Cross – D2 School; St Anne’s of Belfield – D1 School; HMA – D2 School. The girls started every event first, then the boys in the same event. The first issue arose when our relay team was standing at the wrong blocks. I stopped the swim meet and went to find out what happened. It turns out the heat sheet that I had was incorrect and a new one had been printed but no-one passed that along! So needless to say almost everyone had the incorrect heats and lanes written on their arms in sharpie. This meant a lot of “coach, what heat am I?; “coach, what lane am I again?”; “coach, when do I swim?” throughout the 2 hour swim meet! But no one missed an event or swam in the wrong lane so that was a huge plus.
Almost everyone had new events to swim in this time around so it gives them a base to work from. It also shows how much they all regret not swimming over Thanksgiving Break! But there was support and camaraderie as they stood at the end of each lane and cheered their teammates on. When there were breaks there were new groups formed and everyone sharing and talking between each other. Everyone was included and engaged. It was beautiful to watch.
At the end of the meet we were told that we had come last out of the 5 teams. Everyone looked a little down until I mentioned that it’s only their second meet for most of them (6) and they’d have a break.
However for the final results saga I received another email this afternoon saying that the results were incorrect again! So it stands that we finished 4th with only 8 eligible swimmers able to score points so that was extremely impressive. The scores were: WBF 585; FUMA 301; NC 189; HMA 179; STAB 68.
Some individual times and efforts included:
Adkins, B (Gretna, VA ’23) swam his first 200 IM (each stroke one after the other – 50 Butterfly; 50 Backstroke; 50 Breaststroke; 50 Freestyle) and he did awesome even though while swimming on his back he was shaking his head quite clearly showing that he did not want to do that event again! He remembered all of the techniques and he finished impressively without a DQ in this very difficult event.
Dykstra, A (Ten Sleep, WY ’23) dropped his 50 Freestyle by 0.13 seconds to :28.23 seconds.
Hudson, K (Danville, VA ’25) did a strong 100 Freestyle with consistent flip turns and great effort for his first 100 individual event
Le, Q (Houston, TX ’23) swam 3 events which was a big ask but he did it reluctantly. However, he had a huge smile of accomplishment when he finished. He worked hard and I was proud of him for his effort.
Medina, S (Danville, VA ’23) qualified for State in the 50 Freestyle Bonus event and he showed great leadership in delegating the boys to share the duties of the trip.
Pan, C (Bellevue, WA ’27) our 7th grader, that even though he could not score us any points, he showed great courage and determination through both of his events and I’m excited to see him grow with more confidence as he gets better.
Souza, P (Halifax, VA ’25) a true 1 meter diver swimming his first 200 meter Freestyle. He stayed strong and true for the first 100 and dug deep to finish just 15 seconds off qualifying for State.
Verwest, J (Fort Myers, FL ’26) in his first 50 Freestyle is just under 2 seconds off qualifying for the 50 Freestyle Bonus! Amazing feat for an 8th grader!
Wadsworth, I (San Antonio, FL ’26) did his entire 100 Freestyle with flip turns – head down and strong push off and dolphin kick. He worked so hard in practice and it really showed during the swim meet. He knew he did good as his smile spoke volumes!
So overall it was another great performance by your HMA Swim Team. They showed true grit and support and with this continued and positive attitude I am really excited to see their confidence and skills increase and their times drop this season.
Even though our team standings are not high right now, please note that in swimming you can come last in every single swim meet up to the Conference Championship, but if you win the CC, you are the Conference Champions! Each swim meet is individual and does not accumulate or affect the next swim meet. So as mentioned to the boys, the goal is not to be 100% right now. It is to build each day and each swim meet so that they are 100% when the CC occurs. So each improvement is forward progression no matter how small.
Our next swim meet is scheduled for Friday at HMA. Diving will commence at 4:00 pm with the swim meet starting at 5:00 pm.You can watch the meet in person or you can stream it from our YouTube channel if you search “HMA Video”.
