DENVER NORTH VIKING MEN
SWIMMING & DIVING NEWS
5/14/11: LEAGUE CHAMPIONSHIPS Update... I am proud to announce that, while we could only keep the three guys on the roster for League Championships, all three young men had season-best times, and all three are looking forward to building something here at Denver NORTH. A big thanks goes to all three families (Duran, Granado, and Rodriguez) for showing up and supporting these young men in their effort to represent North at the DPS Meet. Team Co-Captain Joseph Granado (a junior from DCIS) had best times in the 200IM and 100FL, making finals and scoring valuable team points in both for NORTH. Team Co-Captain Alex Duran (another junior from DCIS) had a season-best time in the 500 free, but couldn't quite muster a best time in the 100 BR as he was pretty worn out from his 500 free. However, he DID make finals (top 12) in the 500 free, and was first alternate in the 100 BR. Sophomore Juan Rodriguez did everything he could to make finals, swimming a season-best time in the 100 free, and then turning around and swimming the 100 back for the first time of the season... and almost qualified for finals. He was the first alternate in the 100 back. Congrats to all three men, and let's build off this season...
4/21/11: DENVER NORTH FANS... We have good news!!! The VIKINGS win a dual meet... and it didn't come without drama. Yesterday, 3 student-athletes competing for Denver North (Alex Duran, Joseph Granado, and Juan Rodriguez) travelled to Manual HS for a double dual with Denver East and Abraham Lincoln. That's right... that's not a typo. Three, Tres, a Trio... that's all we had. Fortunately, Lincoln had three as well. While Denver East absolutely clobbered both teams (East 78, North 10; and East 76, Lincoln 8), the other meet was up for grabs. So, here we go... since we only had 3 each, we couldn't have relays, and it was a numbers game. North started the scoring, with Juan Rodriguez dropping a whopping 27 seconds from the week before to win the 200 free. Then Alex Duran dropped over 6 seconds to win the next event, the 200 IM. Then, one of the most critical races of the meet, Joseph Granado swam an "off-event," which is an event that he never swims. The 50 free. He is not necessarily a sprinter... but we knew that Lincoln would put two pretty quick guys in the 50. To gain the edge in the meet, Joseph NEEDED to win the 50 free between us and Lincoln. He did one better... almost won the event overall, getting out-touched in the end by a guy from East, but easily winning against the Lincoln guys to give us the edge in the meet. After three events between the two teams, North 12, Lincoln 4. Then came the second half of the meet... Joseph led off with a win in the 100 fly, making the score 16-4, and that's when things got interesting... Lincoln had one fresh swimmer in the 100 free to win easily against our Juan Rodriguez (who was tired out from the 200 free), moving the score to 19-8, then had two very talented backstrokers finish 1-2 to gain 7 points, and the meet stood at 19-15. It came down to the 100 breaststroke. Alex Duran had a best time of 1:43.06, and their swimmer (Gomez) had a season-best 1:55.93 against Montbello. Seemed like a slam-dunk, but Mr. Gomez dropped over 15 seconds to squeek out the win to give Lincoln 4 pts to seemingly tie the VIKINGS... however, Alex Duran finished within a second to give North 3 pts and the dual meet win. It was close... but a win is a win. As our Athletic Director said so eloquently in a text message shortly after the outcome of the meet was announced, "Proud of you, Coach. Little by Little." Haha... That's for sure. RESULTS
4/14/11: Another eye-opening experience for our student-athletes. Most of the guys had personal best times again today, which happens when you are just beginning to learn the skills necessary to compete in HS. The following are the individual resultswere the following:
Sammy Sarmiento: Dropped 7 seconds in his 50 freestyle both times he swam it, nearly breaking the 30 second time barrier. He then dropped 14 seconds off of his 100 freestyle time, getting himself into the low teens, which is significant.
Joseph Granado: Joseph had a 50 fly split of the Medley Relay which was the fastest of the season for him at 37.7 seconds. Then finished the 100 Fly with a season-best time of 1:30.07 and helped our two freestyle relays with the fastest 50 and 100 splits.
Alex Duran: Alex had a solid breaststroke split in the Medley Relay of 46.17, but then swam the 200IM with a 3:36.63, and the 100 breast in 1:43.01.
Felix Espinoza: Felix anchored the first relay with his best 50 freestyle time of the season at 37.64 seconds, then swam the 100 backstroke for the first time, finishing just under 2 minutes at 1:59.01.
Juan Rodriguez: This was Juan's first meet of the season. He swam the 200 free in 4:38.99, then anchored our 200 free relay with a time of 38.65.
Jose Del Rio: Really swam a fantastic 200 free, looked relaxed, regardless of the lack of flipturns. Once he gets flipturns, watch out. He finished the 100 free in 1:20.47, swam 3rd on our 200 free relay with a split of 35.12, then finished the 400 free relay with a split of 1:26.55.
Geo Valdez: Geo led off the meet for us with the backstroke on the Medley Relay, his split of 45.49. He then swam the 50 free in 35.65, and finished 4th in the 100 back with a 1:43.67. His final swim finished off the meet, anchoring the 400 free relay in a time of 1:32.75.
3/17/11: Night and Day... the difference between our first meet and this DPS Relays Meet was like NIGHT and DAY... believe it or not, our main goal today was to swim efficiently, and NO DQ's. We accomplished this and much more... our guys didn't DQ in anything, and we didn't finish last in the team standings, which was something we didn't expect. Because of that, the guys were treated to a fun practice today for St. Patty's celebration. Should be a solid two weeks of training, we don't have another meet until April. Stay tuned... our boys are starting to get it!!!
3/10/11: Ha Ha Ha... can I just say, "WE SURVIVED OUR FIRST MEET!!!" So proud of our guys... we travelled to Montbello HS, and not surprisingly, we got out butts handed to us. Here's the rest of the story. To start the afternoon, we had two teammates NO SHOW. These were two guys that I had really high hopes for... no phone call... no email... just didn't show up at all. On top of that, we had a handful of guys that were not eligible to compete due to too few practices, or lack of follow through in the classroom. BOTH OF THESE THINGS NEED TO CHANGE... That being said, the guys that showed up gave Montbello a respectable meet. We had our first two event champions of the season, Miguel Cabrera in diving (69.23 pts, and didn't fail a dive), and a surprise winner, Geo Valdez in the 100 backstroke (2:02.98). We had a grand total of 9 DQ's (backstroke turning over before touching the wall, mind you none of the guys have learned flipturns, stopping and walking forward on the bottom of the pool, another walking violation, I actually had a guy get out of the pool in the middle of a race and then jump back in to finish, form break in the fly (one arm stroke at the 25 turn), had one guy in the 200 free relay swim four lengths instead of 2 (not good), another guy started swimming crooked in backstroke, ran into the lane line, thought it was the end of the lane, turned and pushed off of the lane line and finished his race... the surprise in his eyes when we told him he didn't get to the wall was priceless). The final event... 400 freestyle relay. I did what any coach would do after 11 events of chaos... I scratched our only relay. Why? Honestly, I was afraid somebody would get hurt... or worse. So, you want to know what I figured out after the meet was over... If the two guys that NO SHOWED had showed up, and we would not have been DQ'd with so many I.S.S. problems (Inexperienced Swimmer Syndrome), we actually coulda woulda shoulda won that meet. My hope... give us more time, and we might surprise somebody. Stay tuned, and GO VIKINGS!!! MEET RESULTS
3/5/11: Well, we just finished our first week of practices. I only hope all our student-athletes remember this first week. The first day, we couldn't even do a warm-up because most of the new student-athletes were afraid of the deep end, and the first time we went down and back, I almost had to make a save. Three times during this first week, I almost... ALMOST... had to dive in (all three times, I took my cell phone out of my pocket just in case). Bottom line, I think we have a team. This next week is going to be brutal but fun... we'll see who has the heart of a swimmer and a diver. 20 student-athletes and counting... GO VIKINGS!!!
2/9/11: Coach Kev has visited all the campuses of our Denver North Co-Op team, and it looks like we have just over 25 guys interested from all five campuses. If we end up with 16 guys, we should be pretty successful... anything above that is GRAVY. Right now, it is about all of you getting your paperwork to the respective Athletic Director to get your eligibility certified. The following are the people you have to go through to become eligible for swimming and diving, please plan on dropping off your completed SPORT PARTICIPATION PACKET (see link above) to the respective Athletic Director:
DENVER NORTH/SMEDLEY/CEC: Gilberto Marin, Denver North Asst Principal and Athletic Director, 720.423.2707 is his office number
DENVER WEST/DCIS: Adrian Green, Denver West Asst Principal and Athletic Director, 720.423.5336 is his office number
1/26/11: VIKINGS @ Denver North will be accepting student-athletes from Denver North, CEC, DCIS, Denver West, and I even heard that there is a diver from South that needs a home. All interested should email Coach Kev by clicking HERE
1/23/11: All student-athletes wishing to Swim/Dive for the 2011 VIKINGS, see the Meet Schedule and block out all those dates so that you don't work or travel during those events. Ask off from work right away, give your managers as much notice as possible. Remember, we expect 100% participation, in practice AND in meets. If you find yourself ineligible for any week of the season, you will still be expected to attend practice and meets (with your books and studying materials in hand), and will be held accountable for missing.
1/18/11: Stay tuned for the first of many seasons for the Denver North Viking MEN. Things to plan for: (1) All Student-Athletes must complete the Sport Participation Packet (click on link above), all paperwork MUST be on file with the Athletics Office before ANY AND ALL participation with the swim team. Questions: Call Madeline at 720.423.2867. (2) Grades Grades Grades, be sure you are studying hard, and getting all your work in on time. If you fall behind in just ONE class, it could keep you out of the pool. (3) Block out the following days and times for practice once the season has begun:
Mon-Thurs: 3:30p-5:30p
Saturday: 7a-11:00a
Practice Expectation: 100% attendance.
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