At the start of this season, we asked the kids if they wanted to swim as Royal Oak, or if they wanted to be known as the Ravens. They preferred to be Royal Oak for one more season.

Their holiday training was phenomenal. They all worked hard on all of the hard intervals. That's when we knew they were willing to work to get better.

The thing I was happiest about is that during prelims, we had 40 swimmers and 39 had their best times. Tonight, most of the swimmers improved their times again. Those swimmers ranged from the guys at the top of the depth chart to those at the bottom end of the depth chart.

Nick had a breakthrough year for us. I feel that he may have even surprised himself with how much he improved. Having state meet experience as a junior will allow him to do big things next year at the state meet.

My expectations for this year are to work hard, swim fast, and be in the hunt for the league championship.

There were some tough battles, but our kids did what they needed to do. Overall, it was a very good day. We had a lot of individual guys get some tough matches in, and we came away with a tournament win.