District Swim Meet

On Saturday, February 8th, Rose, Amber, and I drove to Moses Lake, WA to watch the district high school boys' swim meet. Jay competed in 2 relay finals (the 200 medley relay and the 400 freestyle relay), 1 individual final (100 backstroke), and one consolation race (500 freestyle), finishing off his sophomore swim season with a flare. He was one of only two boys on his team who qualified for an individual final at the district meet. Both of the relay teams Jay swam on got school records, and he shaved a few more tenths of a second off of his 100 backstroke PR. Jay won the consolation heat of the 500 yard freestyle with a 7 second PR of 6:20, after a goggle malfunction at the beginning! Jay works so hard and it was so fun to watch his consistent effort pay off.

I was nervous about making the 1 hour 40 minute drive to Moses Lake on Saturday morning because it was snowing when we woke up, and snow plow coverage out thisaway tends to be patchy, if it happens at all. Jeff sent me updates on road conditions as the team school bus made the trip. Since they left an hour and a half before I did, it was a good preview. Snow wasn't my only concern: Moses Lake is northeast of Sunnyside, and getting there involves driving across an uninhabited tumbleweed graveyard. Seriously, we saw less than five houses for the entire first hour of the drive. I didn't want to have snow issues and get stranded in the middle of nowhere! I made sure Rose, Amber, and I wore coats and brought water bottles and snacks just in case. Thankfully the drive was mostly uneventful, although it did start snowing again and sticking to the road during the last half hour of the drive. 

Since this was an official WIAA state qualifying district meet, the officials were pretty strict. We had to pay an entry fee to get in the door, and we were not allowed to sit with our team. Luckily we found seats on the front row of the tiny limited bleachers set up next to the pool, so we could see pretty well, minus one blind spot that was the lifeguard's head. Since Sunnyside's swimmers were generally lower ranked seeds in the meet, we were able to see a ton of our swimmers right up close in lane 8 (slower seed times swim in outer lanes, faster seed times swim in the middle lanes). It was great!

The preliminary district meet was held on Thursday, where each of the seven schools in our league got 4 entries per event. The top 8 finishers in each event advanced to the final on Saturday, while the next 8 finishers got to swim in a consolation heat on Saturday. Top two finishers in the final on Saturday advanced to the state meet. Jeff said his team of mostly beginners performed better than he expected back at the beginning of the season. Two Sunnyside boys swam their way into an individual final. Jay was one of them! But first he swam backstroke in the 200 medley relay. School record: check.

Next up for Jay was the 500 yard freestyle consolation race. At the prelims on Thursday, Jay missed qualifying for the 500 final by .9 of a second! That meant he had the #1 ranked seed time in the consolation race, and he totally lived up to it! Jay was the only Sunnyside swimmer who got to swim in the "fast lane" lane 4. Even though it was a consolation heat and not a state qualifying heat, it was pretty sweet. He did his best starting dive of the season, but his goggles slipped down so he had to swim blind for the first length. He said "the whole first 25 yards I was thinking about out how to get my goggles back on as efficiently as possible." He figured it out! When he reached the wall, he had to forego a flip turn in order to quickly empty and reposition his goggles. Then he was off again, each stroke pulling him closer to the competition. Within 50 yards, he was back out front again and he was never challenged again for the rest of the 25 lap race. It was so exciting when an official rang a big bell for Jay as he did his second to last flip turn, starting his final lap! He finished in 6:20.98, which was both a 7 second PR and a new school record. Jay's time was faster than one of the swimmers in the final heat of the 500 too. Consolation heat indeed!

When each final was announced, the eight swimmers got to walk the length of the pool high fiving all of the other coaches and teams on their way to the starting blocks. The swimmer with the fastest time in each race got to choose their "walk out song." It was super fun and felt like a fitting fanfare for the hard work it took for those boys to be the top eight in the league. Jay got to do that walk with three teammates before both of his relay finals, and one other time before his backstroke final. I felt so proud of Jay and all of the Sunnyside swimmers. It was a good day. Jeff is a great coach.

Walking through the snow to the pool felt so wrong.

Jay in the white cap, ready for the 200 medley relay. Jay swam his fastest 50 yard backstroke during this race: he went under 34 seconds for the first time.

I love this picture of Jay and 11 Sunnyside boys cheering on their teammate swimming the butterfly in lane 8.

Jay, working on passing his teammate Noah during the 500 freestyle.

Jay, in first place in the 500. The 500 gave me plenty of time to attempt taking pictures. Not too shabby for a cell phone picture!

After he finished, Jay got to look back and watch the rest of the swimmers finish the 500.

Jay, high fiving his teammates while leading the walk to the blocks before the 100 backstroke final. Jay has a white swim cap on and a Spiderman spider stick-on tattoo on his back. Jeff is in the red shirt on the far right of the picture, and Jay is about 6 people to the left of him.

The walk, continued! I went back through my video and saved a few stills as images since I don't really post videos on the blog.

One more picture of the walk to the blocks. It was seriously such a fun vibe, like a walk of champions or something.

Jay at lane 8--no blocks necessary for backstroke

Jay with the spider on his back, about to dive backwards into the backstroke.

They're off! I had fun choosing stills from the video I took.

Go Jay! In the 500 consolation race, Jay had no swimmers around him because he was ahead, and in the 100 backstroke final, he had no swimmers around him because he was behind. That's why personal records are THE BEST, because you can still win against your past self, no matter what place you finish in.

Go Jay!

Jay was the first leg of the 400 yard freestyle relay, which got another school record.

I forgot about the awards ceremony and ended up missing it, but Jeff took a few pictures. Sunnyside got 6th place in the 400 Freestyle relay--there wasn't an 8th place team so Jay stood down there since the steps were too small for four guys.

A tad aggressive on the zoom, but here's Jay with his 8th place backstroke ribbon!

5th place in the Medley Relay! 

Every week, Jeff sends his own sports article recap of the latest meet. He sends it to the local paper, and they print some of it or all of it, depending on how much space they have to work with. Sometimes they even give him a byline! As a finale to swim season, here is this week's email:

The Sunnyside Grizzly Boys capped off their best season yet with solid performances at the District 5 Championships, held in Moses Lake on Thursday (2/6) and Saturday (2/8) this past week. The Grizzlies saw improvements in nearly every event compared to the previous year along with a significant bump in overall team score.

The Thursday portion of the competition was a preliminary competition to set the field for Saturday’s finals. Each team was allocated 4 spots for each event. Sunnyside, along with Wenatchee and Moses Lake, was able to max out their allocations.

“I don’t think anyone expected us to be able to fill all of our spots at the beginning of the season, even with the large numbers we have on our team. Most of our team hadn’t competed in swimming before and a lot of the events are very technical for novice swimmers.”

Sunnyside’s 17 entrants in the prelims managed to earn 16 new personal bests, despite hardware malfunctions in their training pool keeping them out of the water for the week leading up to the event.

“While it would have been great to have that week in the water, this was a great opportunity to use sports to teach a life lesson. Life gets complicated and messy, and rarely goes the way we expect it to go. You can either sulk about it and let disappointment define you or you can take charge to make the best out of a situation. Seeing 16 PR’s on Thursday means that our community can trust in these boys to do just that in any situation.”

The two main objectives for the Grizzlies on Thursday were top 16 and top 8 finishes. Top 16 finishes would result in another race on Saturday and a top 8 finish would guarantee a spot in the finals for the race. The mark to beat from the 2024 squad was 10 individual races on the second day.

The strong performances and pr’s resulted in 20 individual races for this year’s squad along with something new: 2 swimmers reaching the top 8. Aksel Curfman qualified for the finals in the 100 Butterfly while Jay White qualified in the 100 backstroke. Both narrowly missed qualifying for finals in a second event.

In Saturday’s competition the Grizzlies had swimmers in every single event, a first for the program. Some of the highlights include the following:

A new school record in the 200 Medley Relay. Jay White, Ian Anderson, Aksel Curfman, and Noah Wise teamed up to lower their school record to 2:07.95

A district champion in the Adaptive 50 Free, Isaiah Galvan.

A new school record in the 200 Individual Medley. Aksel Curfman placed 10th in 2:43.00. Teammate Noah Wise was just behind in 2:43.43 for 11th.

Another school record for Curfman in the 100 Fly. His 1:06.81 earned 8th place.

A school record for Jay White in the 500 Free. His time of 6:20.98 was faster than the 8th place finisher in the Finals heat (Top 8 from prelims are guaranteed top 8 finishes in finals). Teammate Wise also finished faster than the 8th place winner in 6:28.41. They earned points for 9th and 10th places, respectively.

Another school record for White in the 100 Backstroke. His 1:15.12 was initially ruled a DQ due to the wall judge not seeing him come in contact with the wall on a turn. Luckily the automatic timing system registered contact and his performance was reinstated. White earned 8th place while teammate Jayden Kaptein’s 1:18.08 was good enough for 10th.

A 10th place finish for Ian Anderson in the 100 Breaststroke in 1:21.65.

A new school record in the 400 Free relay. Jay White, Dom Soriano, Andy Quiroz, and Noah Wise lowered their school record to 4:33.20.

In the team score competition, the Grizzlies placed 5th with 173 points, tightly bunched between West Valley (174) and Davis (171).

Sunnyside is returning 8 of their 12 swimmers from Saturday’s competition for the 2025/26 season. 3 of these swimmers jointly hold all of Sunnyside’s individual records: Sophomore Aksel Curfman (50 free, 100 free, 100 fly, 200 IM), Sophomore Jay White (200 Free, 500 free, 100 back), and Junior Ian Anderson (100 breast). Sophomore Noah Wise (#2 in the 200 free, 200 IM, and 500 free) is also returning.