SOBA is First Place at 2023 SCAA Winter Championship Meet

CONGRATULATIONS on a fantastic Winter Championship Meet 2023

SOBA earned over 3500 points at Saturday’s Summer Championship Meet, coming in FIRST place overall - earning a nice big Trophy.

Every swimmer who participated Saturday scored points for the team – this was truly a TEAM EFFORT!
  Over 91% of you had at least one personal best time at Winter Champs – WOW!!
   17% had one best time
    38% had two best times, and
     36% had best time in ALL THREE EVENTS - that is FANTASTIC - so proud of you!

Most Time Dropped – Daniel Mendoza 37.52 total
He gets to take the trophy home for the entire Winter Break. Way to go Daniel! Close runners-up are Carter Park with a total drop of 29.6; John Scholz with a drop of 28.31; Elliot Yeung with a total drop of 28.29; Marlowe Weatherford 25.09; Dominik Guglielmo 22.90; Sydney Kinter 22.89, Asher Rea 22.36; Hunter Rose 19.42; Lukas Zarkos 18.08

High Point Earners – Diana Calta and Kai Sett 147 Points
Diana and Kai placed 1^st in all three of their individual events (3 x 21 points), and swam on both the Medley and Freestyle relays, which also placed 1^st (2 x 42 points). Congratulations Diana and Kai! - you get to take the trophy home this week (bring back Thursday, please). Close runners-up are: Katie F & Adam V 145 Points; Sky T 144 Points; Alex Z 143, Skylar H 142; Annabel 139

The Big Trophy
After our ‘most time dropped’ achievers and our high point earners have had their time with the trophy, each swimmer will have the opportunity to take it home for a few days at a time. We’ll go in order of most time dropped (i.e. ‘best’ of the personal best times)

Relays at Champs
We don’t get to do relays often, so it’s really special when we have so many relay teams at champs meets! This year, we had a relay entered in almost every gender and age group. Relays are important to the team, because they earn DOUBLE points. Medals are awarded for teams who place 1^st, 2^nd, and 3^rd BUT points are awarded to all teams who place 1^st thru 6^th

Relays are a unique group experience for swimmers. The league only allows us to enter one relay team per event; given that we have so many awesome swimmers, it is a challenge to create those teams. We would love it if everyone got to swim on at least one relay; but in some cases, we just have way more swimmers than spots on relay teams. In creating the relay teams, coaches take into account not only the swimmers’ best times, but also workout participation, attitude and work ethic at practice. We tried to offer relay spots to as many swimmers as possible, keeping those guidelines in mind.

Special SOBA Champs “Milestones”
-Congrats to our ‘first timers’ at a Championship Meet:

Leo B, Ralphael C-K, Basha C, Charlie C, Maddie C, EJ, Nirvik G, Dominik G, Sydney K, Daniel M, Nick M, Sophia O, Melissa O-Z, Carter P, Kai P, Josie P, Hunter R, John S, Felix T, Grayson W, Marlowe W, Sydney W, Johnny Y, Lukas Z, Nicholas Z
And Coach Rick!

-Completing THREE championship Meets: Erica G, Sasha P, Sarah Y

-Honored for participating in FIVE championship meets: Peter A, Emiko A, Alyssa M,

-Recognized for participating in SEVEN championship meets: Cassidy G, Kenzie G, Ethan H, Chloe N

-More Than 10:
11 Champs: Fabi DP, Alexander Z, Adam V 
12 Champs: Will B, Sebi P
17 Champs: Georgia L-W / -17 Champs: Sally G

YES, we do have swimmers with 2, 4, 6, 8, 9 champs to their credit (you know who you are!); the aforementioned swimmers hit certain ‘milestones’ which we recognized at Awards Day.

Congratulations on Promotions!
At the conclusion of each season, we often promote swimmers who are ready for the next skill level group. Congratulations to the swimmers whom we are promoting!
-Promoted from C to C1: Gaby B, Lydia M, Carter P, Josie P, Hunter R, Johnny Y

-Promoted from C1 to C2: Leo B, EJ, An-Yi K, Jackson P, Kai S, Marlowe W, Evan Y,
and Lucas Z

-Promoted from C2 to B: Peter A, Arabelle K , John S, Sao S, Zach Y
-Promoted from B to B1: Ella A, Kenzie G, Daniel M, Sasha P, Attila V, Sofia W
-Promoted from B1 to A: Skylar H, Daniel L

 plus we know a couple more of you are really close to promotion to the next group,
 so work hard, and stay tuned for details!

Recognize Coaches
We are so fortunate to have amazing long-time coaches who are dedicated to training SOBA Athletes – thank you Coaches Adriano, Bronson, Rachel, Rick, Ruby and Sue

Parents
THANK YOU for all your help with all the ‘jobs’ we were assigned by the league. We really appreciate you pitching in to help make this meet run as smoothly as possible. Thank you for getting your kids to regular swim practice, to get them up and out super early on Champs day, and so much more. We are lucky to have so many fantastic team families with SOBA!


Way to go swimmers – we are so proud of you! This was a FANTASTIC way to end the season! We are thrilled for our team, and excited for all of your successes at winter champs.

GO SOBA!!    SOBA is #1!