The October Push
October has greeted the Howard swimmers and divers quite nicely. On Friday, we opened the competitive schedule with a very impressive showing against much of the DC area’s best collegiate talent. This is the second year that American University has been kind enough to invite us the Potomac Relays. The sixteen members of the Bison that were able to give it a go performed admirably, even if our team area was in a gaggle behind Lane 1.
The official press release to the meet can be found here.
The highlights for the Bison are as follows:
Chelsea Andrews - soph. – Had an awesome 100 fly leadoff split of in snatching the lead-off leg of the 300 butterfly relay – excellent 100 IM and 200 free relay anchor.
Lauren Anthony – junior captain – two great anchor legs in her 50 free have her continuing from last season’s superb finish
E’lan Brewer - soph. – Very smooth 200 and 150 freestyle, a big part of the sixth place 200 free relay
Camille Dykes – fresh. – Impressive 800 free relay anchor after having just swum 200 medley relay, very promising IM sprint, as well
Janai Ederaine – fresh. – Nice 800 free leadoff leg, wonderful 50 free split in the mighty 200 free relay
Cachanda Evans – junior – 50 and 100 fly legs look very strong, battled well in the final 2 freestyle relays
Monique Major – senior captain – determined 50 breaststroke leg as well as some undiscovered potential in the 50 freestyle
Summer Davis - soph. – very good anchor leg of 300 butterfly relay, nice spark in the 4×100 IM relay
Darell Hungerford – fresh – powerful all-around swims with note-worthy 50 free and 50 breaststroke splits
Zadok Isaacs - soph – put-up some terrific splits in his 100 butterfly and blazing 200 free relay split
Steven Lott – junior captain – marvelous 50 fly and 50 free splits with a 100 back time that sets-up nicely for the year
Frank Lynch – fresh. – tackled tough slate of events with a much-improved 200 freestyle and 100 butterfly
Omar McKenzie – senior captain – precursor to a sensational season with near-best times in the 50 free and 100 butterfly
Justin Morrison – senior captain – awesome 500 freestyle split with an immediate 50 free anchor blitz
Damjan Strbac – senior – two dynamite 50 free anchor splits by poised veteran presence.
Darien Washington - soph. – efficient 200 freestyle and 100 backstroke legs capped with a resolute 50 free split.
It was not enough for our kids to swim well on Friday. We turned around the next morning, some of us at 6:45AM, to embark on a solid practice that you can find in our Workout of the Week. With the cool autumn air giving way to the bright sunshine of Burr, our team trained exceptionally well that morning, primed for the next challenge in front of them.
It's great having natural lighting on beautiful days.
Our fifth week has already begun. Our dryland schedule continues to be rigorous, challenging and quite rewarding. Our group dynamics continue to become smoother. Our rusty fundamentals and morphing into powerful assets for handling challenging sets. And our focus on our competitors is in full throttle. We understand that October is not supposed to be a walk in the park. It’s very satisfying, though, to know just how far we’ve come in one year and how we are willing to work for our success. This week we have THREE 5AM practices to go along with our regular afternoon routine. It’s not easy, but if it were easy, everyone would do it. That’s what’s separates the exceptional from just the good.
Until then…thanks for checking up on us.
