A few nights before the section preliminaries swim meet, Ben came home and announced that coach felt he had a chance of going to state, and everyone who finishes in the top 8 at prelims needs to shave their head before finals. See...what I heard was not "I might have to shave my head". What I heard was "coach said I may have a chance at going to state".
When you are in Sea Turtles, it is fairly easy to go the the YMCA swim meet at some point. Ben went every year that he swam with them. However, at the varsity level it is difficult to go to state. There are a select few that make it, and most of them go as part of a relay and not an individual event. So, we immediately went into "that's great that he thinks you are that good, but it likely won't happen so don't be too disappointed if it doesn't, just focus on your goal of making top eight" mode. When we took a look at the psych sheets, we saw that he was seeded in 6th place. A nice seed time for a freshman, but we still thought making it to state was a really long shot.
SO.....Thursday night prelims came around. His 200 freestyle event is the second event of the meet. He was swimming in the second heat. At all other swim meets, they place swimmers in heats slowest swimmers in the first heats, faster swimmers in the later heats. Except at section prelims (or state prelims), at section prelims they take the fastest 8 swimmers and spread them out across all the heats so that the faster swimmers have the inside lanes (which are the fastest lanes). The first heat of swimmers all had times that were not close to Ben. In the second heat there were three swimmers that had relatively close times, and Ben was one of them.
When it came time for him to swim, he started out strong. He was a solid second place for most of the race. Then on the last leg of the race, out of nowhere he pulled into the lead and finished first in his heat. He had a really nice time of 1:58.10, which was an almost 3 second drop in time from his entry time. It also meant he had met his goal of swimming it in under 2 minutes. Then we had to wait for two more heats to finish before we knew where he placed. The next heat swam, and Ben still had the fastest time. Now the excitement and nerves started to come in. Ben was right in front of us watching the times come in with his coaches. Close by was coach Jon (Kyle's high school coach who has remained a friend and has known Ben since he was younger) also watching.
When the last heat swam, everyone was quickly watching the times, and checking results. We were so excited and amazed by Ben and his swim, but when we saw he placed 3rd....it was just phenomenal.
Top 3 swimmers in each event go to state, so now the hard part....waiting two days for section finals. Maybe coach kinda knew what he was talking about after all. I didn't get a lot of pictures, because I was literally shaking with nerves and then excitement. For a good 20-30 minutes after his swim.
He also placed 8th in his 100 freestyle, and both of his relays placed in the top 8. To be swimming all four of his events in the top 8 championship heat in the section finals is really just SO GOOD as a freshman.
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