After an intense and eventful swim season, the Swimming Patriots counted the days before the 2019 GMCs. With much preparation in mind, the swim team went into the GMCs determined to do better than ever before.
There have been many early AM practices, long PM practices and meets that trained the team for their championship. The Perth Amboy YMCA was ready for the 16 girl swim teams.
The Girls ‘GMCs championship was held on Friday, January 25 2019. The boys GMCs were held on Saturday, January 26 2019. When the teams from the Middlesex counties arrived, they were situated in the YMCA’s basketball court. In addition, the swimmer girls waited until they were called to swim for their event. During the GMCs, every swimmer is responsible to remember their event number, heat number and their lane number. The information is given out right after warm up. The swimmers have to be very keen and alert with what they are doing at the given moment.
A Swimmer’s Experience
Most of the time, people are just waiting around to swim their event. With 16 swim teams all competing at once, there is much hastle. With an average meet lasting less than an hour, the GMCs take at least 4 hours if everything goes according to plan. During this year’s GMCs the meet ended before 8pm.
The GMCs ran like a standard swim meet with eleven events with heats in between. The swimmers from every team raced each other in heats. Which heat a swimmer would go into to was dictated on the range of average swimming times of their event. The heats went slowest times to the fastest times.
The Final Results
When the final times and racing statistics came in, the results were astonishing. Through their best efforts and optimal performance, majority of the swimmer improved in their event. Two swimmers on the Colonia High School team received special recognition and awards for their achievements. Junior swimmer Sylvia Rozalski placed 5 in 100 backstroke event, improving her already speedy time by 0.49 seconds. In addition, freshman swimmer, Nicole Ben-David, placed 2 overall in the 100 butterfly and the 500 freestyle. “Another reason why I loved this profession; watching these athletes rise to the top is a feeling like no other!” stated Coach Degraw.
Yet, the final results of the GMCs weren’t just a surprise to the coach. The high scores of the team as a whole gave them a ticket to the state finals. Qualifying for round 1 they were one out of 18 teams that had the honor to race for the entire state of New Jersey. This was a record-breaking moment for the entire Woodbridge Township, since it was the first swim team ever to make it to state finals.
