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Golden Marlins Take Top Honors at League

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Contributed by: Lorie Simon on 7/26/2006

They cheered for each other until they were hoarse. They stayed until the bitter end. And in the end, the Golden Marlins swim team came out on top of the Foothills Swim Association League.

For the first time in Marlins' history, the team placed first in the two-and-a-half day FSA League Meet, which wrapped up on July 23. The Marlins scored 2,051 points to take home the victory trophy. Applewood Athletic Club came in second with 1,664 points, and Five Parks placed third with 1,208 points. Eleven teams in the league vied for the top spot.

"What a fantastic season this has been," said Head Coach Brian Reed.
The morning of the league meet, one of the most respected names in swimming gave the Marlins a pep talk. Retired Stanford University women's swim team coach, Richard Quick came to the warm up.

Quick's coached the Olympic team six times and won 12 NCAA team titles, the most in the history of Division I coaching. "It's not necessarily the team with the most talent that wins, but the team with the most heart," Quick told the team.

This season the Marlins showed their heart. They finished the season undefeated, winning all dual and tri meets as well as the Ken Caryl Invitational before taking the League honors. But assistant Coach Melanie Lewis, who coached the 8-and-under age group, says heart is measured in improvement.

"At the start of the season there were all these kids who couldn't even make it across the pool and just to see how much they've improved and how much fun they're having with it makes it worth it."

Assistant Coach Andy Peoples agreed, "Seeing the smiling children whenever they drop time and do something they didn't know they could do earlier. When I'm old and gray ... I'll remember that I was involved in something really great."

Peoples, who grew up swimming with the Golden team before becoming a coach, held 13 Marlins' records. He saw one of them fall this season. Peter Zhang, 17, beat Peoples' 100-meter freestyle record of 58.80 by a full second.

"When I was little, I'd look up to people like Andy Peoples and Dan Jibson and now as a 17-18 year old, I hope that maybe I'll be able to influence some of these (younger) kids to swim really well," said Zhang.

Zhang was also named the team's high-point scorer for his age group.

Other honorees for high point include: Libby Clark, Kristen Parker, Bailey Turner, Jake O'Dell, Sosi Papazian, Emily Rutherford, Craig O'Dell, Laura Stateler, Wes Hughes, Juliet Manley and Kyle Hughes.

Those named most improved include: Molly Walsh, Brooks Dickerson, ElijaValdez, Willy Morris, Molly DeLau, Lucas Fox, Whitney Bretz, Chris Huff, Keeli Zigich, Darienne Watson and Greg Clough.

Those honored as most dedicated were: Annie Fox, Billy Potter, Annaleise Lake, Nick O'Dell, Sarah Simon, Michael Duesterbeck, Julianna Versaw, Nicholas Greivel, Megan Paulman and Cheryl D'pagnier.
The team also honored graduating seniors, Libby Clark, Cheryl D'pagnier and Matt Schlesinger.
"Just to see the smile on the kids faces in practice, getting better at their strokes, dropping time, learning to swim strokes they never swum before it's really been a rewarding experience for me," summed up Reed.

The Marlins head off to the state swim meet. The team will beginSunday evening practices in the fall. For more information, log onto the team's website: www.goldenmarlins.com.

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Submitted By: Rebecca Zimmerman

posted on 7/27/2006 @ 12:15:02 PM

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Congratulations Marlins!

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Lorie Simon

Golden , CO

Lorie Simon has posted 11 stories and 0 comments since joining on 6/4/2006. Lorie Simon 's average story rating is 4.89.

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