Joliet Jets YMCA Swim Team

2009: REACHING NEW HEIGHTS!

Have a Merry Christmas!

Savannah Rubocki, Angela Sims, Alex Rubocki, Emily Thomas, and Charlene Dundek
made a snowman after Christmas Camp practice one evening.

Update on Samantha Bulow - Letter from Donna Bulow
Dear Family, Friends, Teachers and Coaches:

Just a quick note to let everyone know (and those who I may not have had a chance to get to yet) that the surgery was a complete success. Even better, Samantha was released 2 days after open heart surgery! We got to bring her home Saturday afternoon. Can you believe it? Everything went fine with the surgery and they had her walking through the halls of the PSHU ward by 6pm Friday night!! Of course she still had the help of those wonderful "pain medicines" but as of Saturday morning they had her off those and had removed all of the tubes and most of the IV's that she was attached to.

She is glad to be home and seems to think she is Wonder Woman. She seems to forget what her body just went through but eventually it catches up to her and she is sound asleep as I am writing this!

Steve and I would like to thank everyone for their thoughts and prayers. We have such a wonderful support team and your support has helped us through a very difficult time.

Donna

JETS Christmas Training Camp
All Pre-Senior and Senior level swimmers will be invited to do our annual Christmas Camp. This year, it will be December 22 - January 3. Check the calendar for the schedule.

January 3: Dual Meet vs. BR Ryall YMCA
The BR Ryall YMCA will be hosting us on Saturday, January 3. Swimmers who have not swam in at least 3 Y meets this season are highly encouraged to attend some (or all) of these upcoming YMCA dual meets so that you can meet the requirement to participate at YMCA Districts on March 1. It is not too late to enter the BRRY dual meet. Please contact Coach Dave.

January 11: Dual Meet vs. Naperville YMCA
The Naperville YMCA will be hosting a meet on Sunday, January 11. This meet will only be open to swimmers who still need a Y meet. Please contact Coach Dave to enter.

January 17: Dual Meet vs. Fox Valley YMCA
The Fox Valley YMCA will be hosting us on Saturday afternoon, January 17. Please contact Coach Dave to enter.

SUMMARIES & ARCHIVED NEWS

Summary: 2008 BR Ryall Mile
Nine of our Pre-Senior/Senior level swimmers hopped on a YMCA bus early on Saturday morning and headed up to UIC for the BR Ryall Mile meet. The only event offered was the 1,650 Freestyle. We had terrific swims with 100% best times and dropped a total of nearly 4 minutes off our best times altogether. Charlene Dundek, Savannah Rubocki and Emily Thomas each swam this event for the first time. Congratulations to Savannah for achieving a AA time and also a Regional Championship cut. After the meet, we stopped for lunch at Heroes West on the way home. The kids were very unified, cheered loudly and had a lot of fun.

Summary: 2008 Jingle Bells Swim Meet

Congratulations on another fun, safe and fast swim meet hosted by our team! Great job to all the parents who helped set-up and run the meet. The meets we host are always the best, with great food too! The kids did fantastic. 90% of our swimmers achieved at least one best time, and a total of 54% of our swims were best times, which is up from 52% last year. We were giving out candy canes for best times and the bucket was nearly empty by the end of day one....the coaches kept telling the kids to slow down so we would have enough for the next day, but they didn't listen. We dropped a total of 19 minutes and 31 seconds, which is roughly 135 seconds more than we dropped at this meet last year. You might contest that we had more swimmers compete this year, however, our total splash count was actually down from last year....so we dropped more time with fewer opportunities. We are well on our way to sail past the total number of seconds dropped last season. Our biggest area of improvement was the long swims (400 IM and 500 Free). Our improvement percentage in those events at this meet last year was 56%, but this year we saw 78% best times in those events. We had 16 swimmers achieve new B times at the Jingle Bells meet and 8 achieve new BB standards. Congratulations to Savannah Rubocki for achieving a new A time in her 200 Free. We saw 6 JETS achieve new Regional Championship cuts: Michelle Fairbairn, Kyle Potts, Alex Rubocki, Savannah Rubocki, Beth Senese, and Jonathon Yanello. In addition, Michelle Fairbairn swam under the Y Area Champ qualifying time in the 100 Fly, as did Savannah Rubocki in the 200 Free and Jonathon Yanello in the 50 Free. Awesome meet!

Summary: 2008 YMCA Thanksgiving Classic
The team did well. We had just over 50% best times, the same improvement percentage as we had last year at this meet. We took home the third place trophy, which will be at the Smith YMCA this week and Galowich next week. We took home the third place trophy last year as well. We had 14 swimmers achieve new B times and 9 achieve new BB times. Michelle Fairbairn and Youjia Wang each achieved new A times at this meet. We also had four swimmers achieve a new Regional Championship cut: Kim Bernhard, Michelle Fairbairn, Alex Rubocki and Savannah Rubocki. Savannah also achieved a Y State standard in the 100 Free. Additional congratulations go to Alex Rubocki and Austin Miller, who went under 1 minute for the first time in their 100 Free! Mike Bernhard was our lone 1,650 swimmer at this meet, and he dropped 42 seconds off his best time! We will have roughly 8 kids swimming the mile at the Ryall Mile meet in a few weeks. Congratulations to all!

Summary: 2008 Ghostly Gathering
The Ghostly Gathering meet was a great success. The meet ran very smoothly and was a lot of fun thanks to all the great parents helping out! Statistically speaking, the kids swam significantly better than last year at this meet. We had 102 JETS swimmers compete and 100 (98%) achieved at least one best time. We had 77% best times overall, with our best events being the 200 yard events (85% BT's) and 400+ yard events (100% BT's). It's great to see us doing well in the longer events. We had 20 swimmers achieve a new standard of some sort. 18 swimmers achieved a new B time and 10 achieved a new BB time. One swimmer achieved a new A time: Savannah Rubocki. We had 6 swimmers achieve a new Regional Championship qualifying time: Nathan Fairbairn, Alex Rubocki, Savannah Rubocki, Emily Thomas, Youjia Wang, and Jonathon Yanello. We had 2 swimmers with a new Y Area Champs qualifying time (which must be met at the Y District meet to qualify): Alex Rubocki and Savannah Rubocki. Special congratulations to all our swimmers who competed in events for the first time! I saw a lot of great courage and great attitudes from our swimmers. Let's continue to work hard and have fun and get ready for the next meet.

Summary: 2008 Tri-Meet vs KKEE & TOPS
Congratulations to all the JETS for kicking off the season with a great meet on Sunday, October 5. Many thanks to all the parents who helped run the meet, and thanks again to all who came early and/or stayed later to help set up and clean up. This was the first swim meet experience for many of our swimmers and hopefully everyone had a great time. We saw some great swims, some fantastic time drops, and awesome courage as kids competed in events for the first time. 89 out of 93 swimmers achieved at least one best time, and 75% of all our swims were best times. We had 9 swimmers achieve new B or BB times and Youjia Wang achieved a new A time in his 50 Breast while swimming under the Y Area Champs q-time.

YMCA Nationals Journal
I plan on writing some daily updates from Y Nationals each night to share some of the stories and some of the experiences of being at Nationals in order to keep kids connected with what their teammates our doing out here, to build some excitement for kids to want to be here and to give kids some familiarity with the meet so that, when they make the trip themselves, they have an idea of what to expect. Click here to read about how things are going at Y Nationals.

Summary: 2008 ISI Long Course Senior State Championships
On July 24-27, Kaitlin Milburn competed in both the 800 Free and 1,500 Free at Senior Champs at Northwestern University. Kaitlin swam a great race in her 800 Free on Thursday and achieved a best time. She also swam a strong race on Sunday, but was just a little off her best in her 1,500. Great job, Kaitlin!

Announcing our 2008 JETS YMCA National Team
The JETS will have three swimmers competing at the YMCA Long Course National Championships at the University of Maryland in College Park, MD on July 29 - August 1, 2008. Congratulations to Ben Foreman, Murphy Hebbard, and Keegan Shepherd. Ben will compete in the 200 Fly, 50 Fly, 50 Breast, and 50 Free. Murphy will compete in the 50 Breast and 100 Breast. Keegan will compete in the 50 Free. This will be Keegan's first trip to Y Nationals and Ben's last. Ben has graduated and will attend Wheeling Jesuit University in West Virginia starting this fall.

Announcing our 2008 JETS State Team
Congratulations to Ben Foreman, Murphy Hebbard, Jessica Milburn, Kaitlin Milburn, and Keegan Shepherd for qualifying for the ISI Senior State Championships on July 24-27, 2008. Ben, Murphy, and Keegan will not attend as they will be headed out to Y Nationals. Congratulations to Carly Breitbarth, Trisha Covarrubia, Savannah Rubocki, and Emily Thomas for qualifying for the ISI Age Group State Championships on August 1-3, 2008.