Tigers Race as a TEAM at State
by Justin Karpinos, swim coach
The USN swimming Tigers brought 11 swimmers to the TISCA State Championship last weekend here in Nashville.
The USN swimming Tigers brought 11 swimmers to the TISCA State Championship last weekend here in Nashville.
While this meet wasn’t the lights-out, electric team performance we’ve had the past two years, we had some very good races and are proud of our team’s effort to compete with focus and purpose on the biggest stage of the season.
Margaret Luffman ’17 posted the strongest individual performances of the weekend, swimming two lifetime bests in the 100 butterfly (1:03.75) and 100 backstroke (1:06.07). Both swims earned her spots on the USN all-time top 10 list.
Her classmate Josh Twillie posted a lifetime best in the 100 freestyle, with a time of 50.12, which puts him even closer to the school record set by Michael Ng ’11. His 50 freestyle (22.34) was his second-fastest swim ever and just off his own school record (22.29) set last year.
The highlight of our State meet was, by far, our relays. This is something that we really value; relays are the highest expression of “team” in an individual sport, and that’s where we did our best. Even when our individual swims weren’t clicking in the way we had expected, our relay performances were big improvements over our best. Notably, Trudy Zou dropped 0.5 seconds off her best 50 breaststroke split, and Mia Pretorius dropped a second off her newly minted 100 freestyle best time. Jack Reed led off the 400 freestyle relay with a two second improvement in his 100 freestyle (51.74), which was just shy of the top 10 list. This represents a major improvement of over four seconds from a year ago.
Both the girls’ and boys’ 400 freestyle relays closed out the meet on a great note – the boys posted a season best time by 10 seconds, and the girls improved over their season best by almost five. Three of our four relays earned spots on the top 10 list:
-the girls’ medley relay (Margaret Luffman, Trudy Zou, Natalie TeSelle, Mia Pretorius) moved up to 9th
-the boys’ 200 freestyle relay (Josh Twillie, Mitchell Coverstone, Ben Werther, Jack Reed) moved up to 6th
-the girls’ 400 freestyle relay (Margaret Luffman, Mia Pretorius, Natalie TeSelle, Trudy Zou) earned the 10th spot.
This concludes the 2015-2016 season. We’re grateful for all the support from our athletic department and our families, the contributions of our seniors, and we’re excited to see the class of 2020 make their mark on the program. See you next year!
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Edgehill Campus
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Nashville, TN 37212
Phone: 615-321-8000
Fax: 615-321-0889
Email: info@usn.org
River Campus
1200 County Hospital Road
Nashville, TN 37218
2000 Edgehill Ave.
Nashville, TN 37212
Phone: 615-321-8000
Fax: 615-321-0889
Email: info@usn.org
River Campus
1200 County Hospital Road
Nashville, TN 37218
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University School of Nashville models the best educational practices. In an environment that represents the cultural and ethnic composition of Metropolitan Nashville, USN fosters each student’s intellectual, artistic, and athletic potential, valuing and inspiring integrity, creative expression, a love of learning, and the pursuit of excellence.
University School of Nashville models the best educational practices. In an environment that represents the cultural and ethnic composition of Metropolitan Nashville, USN fosters each student’s intellectual, artistic, and athletic potential, valuing and inspiring integrity, creative expression, a love of learning, and the pursuit of excellence.