The Blue Division Championship for the three top tier teams in the Prince William Swim League is this Saturday.
Last year, the Braemar Blasters came close to defeating the reigning champions, the Sudley Seahorses, who have held the title for the past 15 years and who were undefeated for 14 of those years - that is, until the Blasters broke that streak last season.
This season, the Braemar Blasters are the only undefeated team in the league and many are saying they have a real shot at becoming league champions. But Head Coach Will Gideonse said he is hesitant to make a prediction.
“I spoke a little too early last year,” he said. “Sudley is a fierce competitor; someone who thinks with strategy.”
Gideonse is fully expecting Sudley to “load certain strokes where we are weaker.” Additionally, he said in a tri-meet, things can often “pan out differently” than expected.
However, he also knows that he is going into the meet with his strongest team yet.
"It's a been a long time coming. Every year we get a little bit closer to Sudley,” he said.
The Blasters are going into the tri-meet with very strong 8- and 9-year-old swimmers of both genders. Gideonse said he has many young swimmers who are breaking records week after week, such as Landon Gentry, 10, and Sarah Roloff who "keeps breaking her older sister's records."
Landon is strongest in the 10-meter individual medley, and Sarah in the 25-meter butterfly, but Gideonse also believes he has an all around strong team, and many of his best swimmers record in various events.
"A lot of records have been broken in the last six years or so," he said.
But Gideonse does not only want to talk about his competitive edge, but the experience of being a Blaster, and how it is a worthwhile experience for all swimmers.
Unlike Sudley, which is a club pool, Braemar is mainly a community pool, making the Blasters a “community within a community.” While this offers certain advantages, it also comes with limitations such as their HOA limiting their practices to the morning hours.
However, Braemar also has the advantage of being one of the largest communities in the league, thus providing a wealth of talent. Gideonse likes to design his team as “home grown.” He also realizes that swimming laps can be tedious at times, so he tries his best to make the experience of being on the team as much fun as possible, by engaging the team in social events.
"We make it fun; we make it social,” he explained, saying he wants them to be “engaged in the water, but also out of the water."
Some of the events he and his coaching staff have planned include movie nights at the pool, spirit night at Chipotle and Zinga, afternoons at Splash Down Water Park and even a “twilight” swim and scavenger hunts for the teenage swimmers.
He also accepts all swimmers without them having to try-out, believing that swimming is a lifetime sport that everyone should be exposed to. While he likes to attract new talent, he also works to keep swimmers coming back year after year.
He says he has 18-year-old swimmers who were 10 when he first became coach, so he has seen them mature from "boys to men” and “girls to women.” And between growing the team and improving the existing swimmers’ times, he has seen gradual improvement every year.
"The same kids come back every summer,” he said. “Their friendships are incredibly tight."
Gideonse said it is also great to see the relationships his swimmers have with kids from other teams, such as Kingsbrooke and Victory Lakes in Bristow.
"I love to swim teams that the kids go to school with,” Gideonse said. "Our ability to have a meet against them makes it fun."
This year, Gideonse said he’s seen the rise of other large community teams, such as the Piedmont Tsunamis, who qualified last year as the third place team in the league. He’s interested in seeing how they do in the division finals.
So, while Gideonse is serious about bringing his best team to the division finals, more importantly, he hopes all of his swimmers had excellent experiences swimming for the Blasters this summer.
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