Happy 2024 and thank you for being part of QSS!

Dear QSS Members,

I would like to thank all of you for being valuable members of QuickSilver this holiday season. As we enter our first days of swimming in 2024, we can look back and appreciate the opportunities we had to race and train this past year.  

Let’s take a moment this week to appreciate Gunderson HS, the SJUSD middle schools, the Pinehurst Cabana Club, SCVCC, Presentation High School, and the Almaden Swim and Racquet Club for sacrificing convenience because they recognize the importance of swimming in our community. There might not be much water left in the Colorado, but we still live near an ocean, and kids need to learn to swim for safety. Aside from saving lives, swimming is one of the best ways to stay fit and develop strong lungs in our ever more sedentary yet inter-connected world. I am incredibly thankful that we have enough resources to weather the individual pool outages that seem to be plaguing the area. Despite this year’s pool challenges, we had fewer days out, and found solutions twice as close to our original facilities, as some other teams in the area. That took no small amount of effort and legwork by our staff, and I hope we can all appreciate the work that goes into it. We have shown that together we can overcome the toughest of challenges, and hopefully that knowledge will allow us to thrive in and out of the pool in the years to come.

Our micro-meets allowed novice swimmers and families the opportunity to get the racing experience needed to progress in the sport. We couldn’t do these small meets without volunteers, volunteer officials, and our coaches putting in the time to make these meets possible. It takes a village, but the relationships you build when you host meets together can last a lifetime.

We had swimmers all over the country this December as we finished the fall season with meets ranging from local age-group and senior meets to high level travel meets at ASU, Hawaii, and even the Junior National meet in Chicago. We saw a ton of progress this season, and we saw plenty of learning opportunities, hopefully we shared all of it with great friends and made lifelong memories. We couldn’t have done any of it without the tremendous commitment from our board, our families and our coaches going the extra mile to create the opportunities for these experiences. Thank you all for the hard work and dedication you’ve put in for the sake of our swimmers!

And finally, I would like to salute our swimmers for the excellent job they have done in and out of the water. The motivation shown in the pool has inspired us to work ever harder to keep this team moving forward and to overcome any obstacles. The discipline to manage their time to come to practice, the ability to build friendships, and the commitment to self-improvement has inspired us in so many ways. 2022 is coming to an end, and the future looks bright indeed. Let’s head into 2023 motivated and determined to make it our best year yet!

Happy Holidays!

Andre Salles-Cunha

Some group highlights with thoughts from the coaches from a fantastic 2023 fall: QSS photos: 

https://photos.app.goo.gl/qccwucLVpAQckPdm9

High School Groups:

Gold 4 has been working hard this season, accomplishing harder sets and tighter intervals as the season progressed. We had a great end of season meet at ASU in Arizona, with swimmers getting best times, many of them in every event! We ended the season off with a bang with the swimmers enjoying spirit week leading up to break, and we look forward to more intense training in the new year as we welcome 12 new swimmers to the group!

Gold 5 showed excellent progress through the yards season. Our swimmers had an elite November meet leveling up with new sectionals, futures, Junior nationals, and US Open standards! We made some unforgettable memories at ASU and made a great impression at Junior Nationals in Chicago too! We are turning our attention to long course for March sectionals in this Olympic year, and look forward to excelling in the 2024 high school season too!

B5 & S5: They ended their season with an unforgettable experience in Hawaii where the local mayor even came out to welcome our team!

Kauai photos: https://photos.app.goo.gl/DmbCNzzMGj4owv959

B5

B5 swimmers made excellent progress this season, with 6 athletes leveling up from B/BB to multiple A times in one season and 32% of the group threw down a Top 100 time in the US! Aria Pon and Evan Raegan ranked 14th and 15th in the 1650 Free, Ilia Pankov, Devin Stanton, Ayla Burke, Henry He, Max Miller, Aria Pon, Evan Raegan are ranked Top 100 in the U.S.

S5

S5 had a fantastic year with three girls, Malia Groen, Enna O'young, and Makenna Chuang, swimming new future times. Malia ranked 11th in the county for the 1000 Free and 19th in the 500 free, and Enna is 13th in the country for the 100 Breast. Ethan Xue swam a new sectional cut in the 400 IM, placing him 12th in the county for 13-year-olds. Pasha Salistra Swim a new best of 22.65 in the 50 free, placing him 17th in the county for 13-year-olds. Brandon Pon also swam his SCY sectional in the 200 Brast. We have numerous new FW qualifiers, such as Itzabella Cinco, Danial Ratz, Brian Do, James Brandall, Kevin Foucu, Ethan He, Daniel Li, Alex Lo, Gabrielle Lu, Kanwar Sethi, and Sophia Tayco. A big shout out to all S5 swimmers who dropped a ton of best times this season, and good luck to all the freshmen moving up to the Gold groups. 

The little ones

For Lil Q's, we have had a solid season for the group 4-9 year olds despite being in the 12 yard pool at the country club with no flags/blocks. We have been working on streamlines on our stomach and back, kicking with boards, swordfish starting with eyes on the side to work side breathing and eyes down to work on body position, and we have been working on catchup freestyle with an every third side breathing. 

They also have been introduced to tumbles foward/back in the water, mermaid/dolphin kick, basic triangle breast kick and non-catch up free as well to have a base for when they move up. They are a fun group of athletes that will move up and hold their own soon! All current Lil Qs should be ready for 25s (and maybe 50s) by February/March depending on our lap pool return date. I am very proud of my Lil Q's group and can't wait to work with them in January!

This season has been unique for the Age Group 3s at SCVCC as we have been using one lane of club sport instead of the 3-4 of SCVCC. This started out with an average of 7-9 athletes swimming in the lane in October. This was a challenge for the athletes as they were used to 2-4 a lane. After about a month of transition, the beneficial effects started to show as the bottom of the group decided to chase the top and the top continues to improve. -Coach Zach

The 9 swimmers that carried through the entire fall/winter all showed improvement through the season. The 6 athletes from AG 3 that swam at the December AG minus meet had best times in 16 of the 19 races. Two athletes, Omar Aboelela (10) and Ozzy Su (7) who also attended 94% of all season's practices, are moving to AG 4 at SCVCC due to their hard work. I am very proud of my AG 3 group and can't wait to work with them again in January!

-Coach Zach



AG3 from coach Melissa:

Happy New Year!

We had many 8 and under A times and 10 and under B last season.  A couple got close to BB times! 9 kids moved up to ag4!

It was one of our best seasons and there was a lot of improvement across the board. 

All the groups:

Good work to everyone who swam in 2023 and let’s keep that progress going in 2024!