PAY Swimming Places 8th at Maryland Meet

The following was provided by Susan Mostek.

Last weekend 44 members of Phoenixville’s YMCA swim team (PAY Swimming) travelled to the University of Maryland to compete in Winterfest 2013, the largest mid-season winter YMCA swim meet in the country.

Over 1,500 swimmers gathered from the East Coast for the opportunity to compete in a qualifying meet against some of the fastest swimmers in the region.  PAY Swimming did not leave disappointed.  They finished a very respected  8th out of 48 teams.  Head Coach Ryan Kennedy stated, “I am proud of our team as a whole in and out of the pool. We took our biggest team down to the meet since I’ve been here and all across the board our kids dropped times.”  Of particular note, the team had several first place finishes:

Zach Maher (14)

• 200 Free (1:46.14)
• 100 Fly (52.80)
• 200 Fly (1:59.59)

Emma Seiberlich (14)

• 200 Free (1:54.66)

Erin Merke (11)

• 50 Fly (27.74)

Emma Seiberlich (14), Maddie Cooke (14), Morgan Hansen (13), Olivia Giampietro (13)

• 200 Medley Relay Team – (1:51.86)

“I still think we have a lot to work on to get even better but I couldn’t be happier with the times the team posted at this point in the season. I was a little nervous going into the meet because I didn’t rest them as much as they were used to, but they stepped up,” Kennedy continued.  PAY Swimming has already had  7 team members qualify for YMCA National Championships which are held in Greensboro , North Carolina  on April 3-6, 2013.  Kennedy is sure that teammates Zach Maher, Kyle Hoops (16), Olivia Giampietro, Emma Seiberlich, Maddie Cooke, Morgan Hansen, and Emily Fabius (13) are looking for more company to take down to the meet after the big end of season meets conclude. “I still think this team hasn’t touched their potential yet, and we’re finally seeing a group of young leaders emerge and really give a name to the program again. I don’t remember being that excited at a meet before.”  It appears that PAY Swimming will offer a lot of excitement in the months ahead.