FULLERTON, CA – The Nova Masters Swim Team regained the Southwest Zone
Championship title at the 2010 Southwest Zone Long Course Championships held
at the Janet Evans Swim Center in Fullerton July 23-25.
SwimPhone has the full results and stats from the meet.
The team race turned out to be a close battle between the Las Vegas Masters
and Nova. Las Vegas came to the meet with several collegiate swimmers on
their summer break who dominated the younger age groups, while Nova had a
decent but not dominating presence across the age group spectrum. At the end
of the second day, Las Vegas led by 110 points, but Nova rallied on the final
day to bring it to within 56 points going into the last set of relays.
“Our plan from the beginning of the meet was to hit the last set of relays
hard to overcome a deficit if we were behind,” Coach Michael Collins said.
“We got about 12 swimmers to come swim, just to compete in relays at the end of
the meet and it certainly made the difference. We went from 56 down to 68
ahead in that last set of 200 Medley and Freestyle relays. It was great to
see the energy of the team to swim fast at the end of the meet.”
“But in addition to relays we had several excellent individual performances.
If we had just ONE person less at the meet we probably would not have won.”
Individual Age Group High Point winners for the team included Danny
Puchalski (25-29M), Hank Greenberg (60-64M), Jim Riddle (45-49M), and Paula
Fell (45-49F).
“We actually TIED with Las Vegas in individual points scored, but got a few
extra points on relays to make the final difference.”
Final Team Scores Individual Relay Total
1. NOVA Novaquatics Masters 1,676 762 2,438
2. LVM Las Vegas Masters 1,676 694 2,370
3. ROSE Rose Bowl Masters 964 348 1,312
4. SCAQ Southern California 793 276 1,069
5. MVN Mission Viejo Masters 637 138 775
I was out of the water for 19 years. Inspired by the Olympics I found myself back in, competing it and loving it. The Nova Masters's coaches are great. They are knowledgeable and supporting. I'm almost as fast as high-school - but not college. ;)