There's Marissa along the sidelines (and in her heavy coat once again).
And then, whether we were really truly ready or not, it was time for Marissa to swim in the 100 individual freestyle race. I was praying that she would be able to swim well and to get into the 54's again since she has been working so hard and hadn't achieved that time all season long.
Here is the video of the preliminaries. There would be three IWU swimmers in this heat but Marissa is up near the top of the screen in lane #4. She is in the top four for the first 50 yards of the race but then when the top swimmers start to pull away, she stays with them and finishes in the top three!!
I was so excited as I was watching the race because Marissa was staying right up there with the fastest swimmers in her race and usually, if you can finish in the top three in each heat, you have a really good chance to come back for the championship finals. So I was already clapping and cheering her on for a great finish, but then we looked up at the board and I saw that her time registered as a 53.94!! No way! Could that even be a correct time? Was I looking at someone else's time by mistake? Seriously, I was praying for a 54 second and God just really blew us away as she lowered her seed time by 1.27, which is almost unheard of in a distance of 100 yards. This was definitely a new lifetime best and she would be seeded sixth heading into the evening's "A" finals.
She was definitely SO excited! I don't think that she was able to stop smiling for quite some time!!
After the morning session came to a close, Marissa said that she would need to stay at the pool for a while longer before heading back to the hotel with the team, so Noel and I left and went to get lunch. Since we were already checked out of our place, we also went downtown and found a bike store and some other places where we tried to waste a little time. We also just drove around the town and commented on all of the snow and ice piles that were just along the side of the road. Despite the fact that the winter storm had passed through over two weeks ago, much of it still hadn't been cleaned up. One of the local colleges mentioned that all of the schools had missed over 8 days because the area wasn't ready and equipped to take care of all of the snow and ice, which the swimmers from our school found really funny since they only were delayed for about four hours on the first day.
After walking around for quite a while, Noel and I headed back to the pool around 5:00 for the final session of the weekend.
Once again we watched the teams do their warm-ups and then Marissa headed over to the trainers table so she could have some work done on her shoulders and neck. (We are so thankful for Mary the trainer. She works so hard to keep them all healthy.)
A few minutes later, Marissa would head off to the locker room to get suited up and then she would come out and take her place in the line for the championship heat where she would be paraded out to her place behind the starting blocks for her 100 final. Once again, my heart started beating so quickly as I wondered if she could repeat (or even improve) on her morning's race.
Marissa is the 2nd swimmer from the bottom in lane #8. One of her teammates is in lane #9.
The SID took this picture and in this picture, Marissa is on the left and her teammate is on her Right.
Once again, I took pictures and Noel took a video.
Wow! What a race. It was another quick one and even though Marissa finished in 6th place overall, she swam another new lifetime best with a time of 53.79. Once again, we were just sitting there in disbelief as we looked at her time and realized that she just swam 53 seconds twice in one day. I know that she wanted to try to take even more time off, but we were so very excited all the same!
Her roommate Marta swam really well and finished 2nd.
As you can see IWU represented us well in that final event.
After the awards presentation, all three of those girls went back to cool down in the other pool before getting ready to finish off the night in their final event which was the 400 Freestyle Relay.
Last minute prayers together and then the race would start.
Marissa would swim in the second position once again and the entire team would swim in lane #4...the second team from the top.
Another great race...
When Marissa dove in, the first place team was already clearly in the lead, but the next four places were too close to call as they were all swimming hard for position. This time however, Marissa was determined not to be passed so she went out strong from the beginning. You can see that she steadily pulls away and by the time she hits her final turn, she has put them into a solid 2nd place. They were still in second place when she hit the final wall and they never lost momentum after that. The IWU ladies would take home second place and another All Conference Award to finish out the ladies portion of the meet.
Congratulations to the IWU Swim and Dive team!!
The Lady Wildcats would finish 2nd overall in the conference and the men's team would finish in 3rd
What a great meet!!
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After the meet, before loading up and heading out for the final time.
Marissa would head back to the hotel with her team and Noel and I would get back into the car and began the long 5+ hour drive home. We are so thankful that we made it safely home around 2:30 a.m. on Sunday morning and we will always consider ourselves blessed that we could be there to support Marissa and watch her do what she loves. (And apparently what she is also really good at!!)
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On Sunday morning, Marissa and the team headed back home. As you can see, a certain someone was really tired after that long weekend.
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