Coppell Swims Hard at the 2021 District Swimming and Diving Championships

Our Team diver Yassin Helaly began the meet at District against stiff competition. His diving was as always, a pleasure to watch and as the meet progressed, he moved into second place at midway through the 11 dives. As Helaly moved on toward the end of his dive set, he increased the difficulty of each. With each increase in difficulty comes an increased reward of a larger number of possible points in return for a perfect dive. Unfortunately, there were four other boys who established an early lead which Yassin was unable to top. Despite this he only slipped out of a regional qualifying place by one position leaving him 5th overall in the District. As a junior this year Yassin had challenges with moving from Egypt to Coppell and didn’t get the chance for a full season of training so his coaches view his finish as quite strong. If that wasn’t enough to comfortably sing his praises for a good finish to this year Yassin set a New School Record, besting the previous record by better that 50 points with a 403! We can’t wait for diving next year. That same day in the afternoon due to some logistical issues our awesome Volleyball Coach Julie Price dropped everything and drove our girls’ team to the meet!! Thank you, Coach Price!! Volleyball rocks! The District swimming meet begin with our Girls CHS swim team which raced very hard in the meet this year. We had some victories, some lifetime bests, and tremendous team energy. We delt with some challenges as well…. with race jitters and excitement which disqualified the 200 Medley relay after having a 3rd place Regional qualifying finish. This stings but it is simply a sign of too few meets prior to a big championship like this. There were just not enough races to harden the nerves and hold on the block for the touch. Our relay was composed of 2 freshman (Katy Jost, Nalini Agnihotri) a sophomore (Koharu Wakabayashi) and finally a senior who we wish wasn’t leaving us (Shreya Tirumala). This is a relatively young relay, with one exception and has every reason to continue to improve and win next season. The Cowgirls collectively recorded a number of best times, and outstanding swims. Here are a few of the highlights: On the girls’ side, rookie Kate Jost swam a solid meet swimming a 500 free at 5:11.0” following that with her anchor of the girls 400 Free relay with a 57.4.” The 400 relay also has young swimmers who are strong…each having great intrinsic drive. Two are juniors who we have been able watch go from good to great swimmers, Bella Malick and Claire Jang. Bella led the relay with a 57.8” and Claire followed her with a 59.7.” I can’t say enough about the growth of these swimmers and how amazing it has been to see them improve year over year. The third in the relay was Nalini Agnihotri who swam the fastest leg with 55.9 time and finished with our anchor Katy Jost swimming a 57.5.” The Swims of the Day went to Bella Malick a role model of work ethic who continues to lower her times. Friday evening, she reduced her 100 free personal best by two full seconds to a 57.8” and then delivered another 2 second drop on her 100 backstroke down to a 1:04.9.” Two seconds may not seem like lots of time to a non-swimmer, but this is a sport won by hundredths of a second. Nice work Bella! Claire Jiang ripped 1.5 seconds off her 100 free going under a minute with a 59.9.” Adriana Gutierrez another of our girl swimmers, with an indomitable spirit and laughter so contagious that Hazmat suits can’t stop the spread, produced a Varsity A time in her 100 Fly with a 107.9.” Also, with a Varsity A time, Kaia Miller, Adriana’s partner in “team spirit,” dropped a second on her 50 Free with a 27.7” and took 2 seconds off her 100 Breaststroke with 1:17.3.” Belen Campos also posted a Varsity A time in her 50 Free with a 27.8.” She is another freshman up and coming swimmer whose future looks bright. Last in these mentions, is Aarushi Anand who took SIX seconds off of her previous 200 Free time with a new time of 2:25”. In this race the time was not the story. It was the guts and determination with which she swam that race. To see and speak with Aarushi one could be left with the idea that she is very quiet, a bit shy and very sweet. In fairness, she is all these things but watching her race in the 200 you will quickly see that in fact she is sort of a lioness in a mouse’s suit. In her 200, a relatively long race, she swam against a girl who put up an early lead. Most of the time when we see this happen, we are watching a swimmer try to establish a position that leaves the other swimmer in a place where the energy required to catch up is going to wear them down and keep them behind. Not so with Aarushi. More like the lioness than the mouse she simply met her competitors moves with moves of her own. When her competition thought she would wear Aarushi down it backfired because she quickly realized Aarushi was locked on and not willing to let her competitor take one more inch. The outcome was amazing to watch. No, it wasn’t exactly “Wild Kingdom,” but Aarushi definitely ran down her prey. That young lady has no quit! On the boy’s side, the Swims of the Day were made by Jay Choppa with his 100 Back going under a minute with 59.9,” bettering his previous time by 2 seconds. Ethan Tong dropped 2 seconds off his 100 fly for a 1:03.1. Sree Kurakula dropped 1.2 seconds in his 100 fly for a 102.1” finish. Asher Johnson dropped a second off his 100 free to bring himself closer to breaking 50.0” with a 51.8.” Johnson also took 1.3 seconds off his 100 breast for a 1:03.4.” Ansh Deskhmut came down to 52.5” 100 free after dropping 1.4 seconds. Amav Kambete got a 101.4” 100 back time after dropping 1.4 seconds. Jonathan Ting made the 100 fly look easy with a time of 53.5” dropping by 1.3 seconds. Last but certainly not least Korman Item swam a 500 as the only Varsity III/JV swimmer qualifying for the District meet. Korman showed his true colors in the race timed at 5:59” which was his personal best. The real story in Korman’s race was not his time. The real story which was repeated by another Coppell Swimmer, Aarushi, was how he swam the race. Every coach loves to track the “splits” on races like a 500. The real story of strength, endurance and guts or the story of racing strategy is told in the splits. In Korman’s case we saw guts and determination driven in part by a swimmer who was beside him and just slightly ahead. Not every swimmer who takes on the 500 is able to negative split starting in the middle of the race and then continuing to the end. Yet that’s exactly what Korman did as he made a valiant attempt to capture the lead from a competitor. As his competitor pulled in front of Korman, Korman continued to pour on the coals to pull aside his competition. He continued to battle for the winning position throughout the second half of the race. This is a place where many finally accede victory because they simply run out of gas. This was a very special opportunity to see Korman under pressure and witness his response. Item is a swimmer who doesn’t let off the throttle until the race is done!! Sean Li and Nathan Lim competed in the 100-breaststroke event with respective times of 102.54” and 100.75.” The latter qualifying for Region Championships. Congratulations Nathan Lim!! William Li had a nice time drop in the 500 free bringing it down to 5:06.9” and in the 200 free bringing it down to 1:56.7.” Finally, our boys’ team of Jonathan Ting, Nathan Kim, Scott Moyer and Sean Li managed to pull in a time of 1:33.88” qualifying them for the Regional Championship in 4th place. Congratulations gentlemen! Overall our teams both boys and girls teams each fought to a 5th place finish in the District and took 5th place overall. Congratulations Coppell Swimming and Diving Of course, I’ve mentioned our qualifying relays but and Mr. Nathan Lim’s second places time in Breastroke as well as one of our stellar freshman girls named Katy Jost who rolled to 3rd place in the 500 Free!!!. I mentioned Katy’s grace and speed as well as our monster breastroker Nathan who never seems to quit growing earlier in this recap. What I can’t seem to capture it what immense pleasure their coaches get out of seeing them swim as they did. If you haven’t seen a swim meet go sometime. Go watch someone you know and watch them show you what poise and power look like when combined in the water. Katy and Nathan will both be at the Regional Championship 2021.

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COPPELL SWIMS HARD AT THE 2021 DISTRICT SWIMMING AND DIVING CHAMPIONSHIPS

DC

DC | 2/1/2021

PHOTO CREDIT: DC