After Marissa got back to campus, she sent us some fun pictures that they had taken on the side of the pool deck. These are pictures of her and her sweet friends and I wanted to save them here for future reference:
Marissa and Chloe:
Marissa and Emma:
Marissa and Aubrey:
The roomies... Martha, Aubrey, and Marissa
Marissa and Marta
Marissa and Reyna
Marissa and Ellie
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And then the awards started being announced, starting with Academic All Conference:
And All Conference in two different Relays:
Marissa would also record two new Season's Best and three new PR's.
On Saturday morning, Noel and I checked out of our Airbnb and then headed over to the pool for one last long day of competition. On Saturday, Marissa would be swimming in the individual 100 freestyle and then in the evening, she would compete in the 400 Freestyle Relay. We arrived early enough that we were able to watch the team warm up and then the meet started again at 11:00 a.m.
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!!
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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.
Friday kicked off Day Two of the MSC Conference Championships
The team grabbed breakfast at their hotel and then made the 20 minute drive back to the pool for the morning session. Once again, the morning session wouldn't start until 11:00 so I was able to find a seat and then watch them as they began their warm-ups.
And then an hour later the team gathered around for another team prayer and group cheer. Some of our fastest events would happen during the Friday sessions and our team was really excited to see how it would go.
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Marissa would swim the 200 individual freestyle during the morning session. Once again, there were three heats and she would be swimming in the final heat. We had two other participants from IWU in this event and so there was one IWU swimmer in each heat. They have all swam about the same times in previous meets this year, so Marissa was standing behind the blocks and watching their times nervously, but she did look for me and gave me a smile when she saw me in the stands.
And then the SID took these pictures from up above:
Since this race is 8 lengths of the pool, I decided that I wouldn't video it but I would just live in the moment instead. (And I was pretty nervous for her so I was pretty sure that my hands would be shaking too much to capture quality footage anyway. LOL) But many thanks to another mom who was watching the race from behind me and when she realized that it was Marissa swimming, she made sure to film the last part of the race. Once again, I love the fact that the parents are like one big family and we all cheer for everyone's kids. In this video, you can see a mom (in the gray tshirt) cheering Marissa on from the stands and then you can see me (on the right in the white shirt) also cheering her to the finish. I actually stopped cheering right at the end though because I was trying to see her final time as she swam into the wall. I knew that Marissa has been trying to get under two minutes since high school and her splits were looking really good. Would this race be the one where it finally happened?!
Trust me when I looked up at the scoreboard and saw that not only had she won her heat, but she finished with a time of 1:59.90. I couldn't believe it!! After several years of trying, she had finally gotten under two minutes and not only that, but she won her heat and secured a place (for the first time in her collegiate career) in the "A" championship finals. (My eyes might have been watering just a bit as I sat there in disbelief)
But then instead of celebrating with her teammates.... she needed to rush to the trash cans so she could get rid of a lot of lactic acid. But don't worry.... puking in a trash can off to the side of the pool is how Marissa knows that she just swam a really good race!! LOL
Thankfully she was able to get all of that junk out of her system and get her cool down laps in before the morning session ended and then once again, we said our "good-byes" and she headed back to the hotel. And then, this is where things got interesting for me. As soon as the morning session was over, I would jump back into my car and drive almost 3.5 hours back to Indianapolis where Noel was finishing up his coaching clinic. My goal was to arrive at his hotel right around 4:00 and then we were both hoping that we could make good time back to Danville. Since the evening session started at 7:00, we knew that we would miss the beginning relay and at least one of the early races, but we were praying that between the extra relay and the awards ceremonies, we would make it back in time to watch Marissa swim. One of the moms knew what we were trying to do, but she offered to video the race and the championship walk-out in case and I was very thankful for that.
God definitely showed us favor as we made the 3+ drive back to campus, found a parking spot in the pool's parking lot and that was almost a miracle in itself and then we walked as quickly as we could across the ice covered parking lot to the entrance of the lobby. Since I had bought tickets earlier in the day anticipating a rushed arrival, we ran right past the entrance table and quickly headed up the stairs. On our way in, two other parents quickly called out that we were doing great because she hadn't swam yet. Again... just so overwhelmed by the love and support. Anyway, Marissa said that she was looking for us and even though she knew we may not make it, she said she saw us running in and instantly it calmed her down and helped her get focused on her upcoming race. As it turns out, we arrived with only 10 minutes to spare -- praise the Lord for his goodness to us!!
After the "B" finals, Marissa was able to get into a line and then they paraded the eight "A" finalists out in front of the stand and had them all take their places behind the starting blocks. Marissa would be in lane six and two of her teammates would be in the blocks right beside her.
My pictures are all pretty blurry because I was sitting so far away for my phone to get any good ones, but once again, our SID was taking pictures from up above and he shared a few pictures with the swimmers after the meet. These are great! Out of the three IWU swimmers in the last spots, Marissa is the swimmer on the top and Katie and Tristen were beside her. (She has a girl in a white suit to the right of her)
Since Noel was there this time, he took a video of her race for me.
And we were so thrilled to watch her fight her way all the way to the finish and finish in 4th place overall in the conference. She would miss All-Conference as an individual by just one spot and it was especially exciting for her to place so high because she had entered the day seeded 13th. Wow! What a fantastic and exciting race!!
200 Freestyle 1:59.94 4th Place
She didn't throw up anymore after this race, but she definitely took a few minutes to sit down and lean against the wall to catch her breath before she went over to the awards presentation.
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About an hour later, these three would join another swimmer to swim another 200 yards each as they participated in the 800 Freestyle Relay. They made their way to the starting blocks and waited for the race to begin. For this event, they would be swimming in lane #4.
Once again, Marissa was the second leg.
IWU's team was in 2nd place when it was Marissa's turn to dive in, with the third place swimmer right behind them. Unfortunately, despite the fact that she went out really hard and put distance between herself and the third place swimmer, she was just too tired to hang on and by the time she reached the wall at the end of her 200, they had fallen back to third. Then, by the time the race was over and the other two swimmers had finished, they had given up another spot and would eventually finish in fourth place. Marissa was pretty disappointed with her swim and the fact that she gave up a spot, but hey, at that point in the evening, after two consecutive lifetime bests, you just have to accept that you can't win them all, right? And a fourth place finish at the conference meet isn't anything to be upset about.
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Congratulations girls!! What a great way to finish out the second day of championships.
