Wells Branch Armada

Please read through the entire newsletter for Information about upcoming events, Spirit Nights, and Meet Wrap Up.

by: Deanna Johnson, President

It was a great turnout for Swim-a-thon. I saw many swimmers striving to get their laps in before the end of the evening, and it was so fun to see the excitement on our swimmers faces when they hit their 50 or 100-lap goal. All those snow cones gave them the push they needed to finish! This is a friendly reminder that swim-a-thon donations can be turned into the board file box using the donation envelopes placed in your file boxes. We are also accepting electronic payments, which can be shared with family and friends. The Swimathon event helps us earn between $8–10K, which helps us keep our costs down for families. So thank you for your participation.  

Don't miss our incredible raffle. We will sell tickets at most practices and choose winners at our awards night. From adventure experiences to dinners, luxury make-up and Botox, a homemade quilt, and more, we have some incredible options to choose from so check them all out.

Still trying to understand all the swim team lingo or what the disqualification (DQ) slips are about? Check out these quick guides. 

• Guide to Summer Swim Lingo
• Understanding DQ's

Don't forget to check out our 2023 Armada photo album. Big thanks to parents Meg Stephenson, Diamond Thompson, and Francisco Chairez who are taking team photos this year. Check the photo album periodically to see new photos that have been added. Please give them a week after each swim meet to see the new photos, as it takes a while to process photos and then get them uploaded. If you post pictures with your child, please be sure to give our amazing parents photo credit. Please do not post pictures of other children without their parent's permission.

Don't Forget, if you have photos to share for our end-of-year slideshow, please send them to [email protected].  

Thanks again for spending your Saturday mornings with us and volunteering your time. I can’t say THANK YOU enough. As you have figured out by now, we cannot run these meets without parent volunteers, and you all have really stepped up to the plate this summer! This weekend will be our first 'away' experience, but we still need our volunteers. 

If you have any questions, please reach out to [email protected]. 

by: Jake Tolfa and Maddie Wright, Head Coaches

Swimmers, awesome job this past weekend at our meet against the Stars. Congratulations to all our swimmers who also swam in their first meet as well. These are some of the things we as coaches noticed this past Saturday and would like to focus on this week.

1. Flip/Open Turns

2. Difference between swimming and SPRINTING

3. Butterfly/Breaststroke Technique

4. Block Etiquette/Sportsmanship 

Now, with us moving into morning practices and really getting into the swing of things, we know many of the swimmers still have plenty of goals they wish to accomplish this season. Please let the coaches know how we can help you meet those. Let´s put in our best effort to practicing hard this week so that we can continue to earn those time improvements as we head into our first Tri-meet of this season. We will be taking on the Cedar Park Typhoons and the Brushy Creek Marlins at Brushy Creek this Saturday!

MEET THEME: TIE DYE!

Starting this Saturday we will choose 1-3 swimmers who we believed dressed up the best according to our theme. The winners will get to take a picture with the coaches and will possibly receive a candy reward;)

Team Chants:

As some of you parents may have noticed at the meets one of our traditions is to get the kids together and perform some of our team chants after warm-ups. We noticed that some of the new swimmers may not know them or some swimmers may forget them, so we have decided to put them here in the newsletter!

Down by the River

In this chant the coaches will yell a sentence and the swimmers will repeat it back, simple!

"Down by the river! 

Took a little walk! 

Met up with the other team! 

Had a little talk! 

Pushed them in the river! 

Hung em' out to dry! 

We can beat the other team! 

Any old time!" 

My Shoulders Ache

This one is a normal chant we all say together, it includes hand movements that the swimmers will copy off of the coaches who are doing the chant

"My shoulders ache,

my suits too tight, 

my hips shake from left to right, 

say 1...2...3...4...5 WBA don't take no doubt, 

say 6...7...8...9...10, when we swim we swim to win!"

Baby Shark

Do we need to explain... ;)

We as coaches want to hear parents thoughts on how we are doing so far! We would really appreciate if everyone participated, responses are anonymous!

Here is the link to access the survey: https://forms.gle/SrEsFKHQvcT4vpZM6

By: Jake Tolfa and Maddie Wright, Head Coaches

As some returning families may know, once we get into morning practices we start hosting our weekly stroke clinics, and that time has arrived!

Stroke Clinics are extra 30-minute training sessions swimmers can sign up for on Tuesdays/Thursdays. This summer we will host 3 sessions, each session containing 2 lanes working on 2 different things. The clinics will be $10 per kid per session, in cash, paid to the coach who is teaching the clinic. 

This is a great opportunity for kids to get some extra and more focused practice in any of the strokes, dives, and/or turns. During these sessions we look at what each swimmer needs specifically to improve their skills

Sessions:

11:30-12

12-12:30

12:30-1:00

Early this week we will have a binder out near the family binders labeled "Stroke Clinics Sign-Up" and this is where you will sign your swimmers up. This is where you will be able to see what different strokes/techniques will be focused on, what sessions and lanes they will be in, and which coach will be teaching the clinic.

We understand for new families this may seem a little confusing at first, if you have any questions about the clinics please feel free to contact either Coach Maddie or Jake!

Our first away meet is this Saturday against the Cedar Park Typhoons & the Brushy Creek Marlins. Please arrive on time. Late arrival could result in your swimmer being scratched from their relay. Allow extra time to find the pool and to find parking.

Scratch: After we close the meet online, please email or text Catherine, our Meet Director ([email protected] or 956-802-2253), in order to scratch.

Key Information:

Parking:  Brushy Creek has a very strained relationship with their MUD and HOA regarding parking. PLEASE follow their parking plan. During the meet Marlins Volunteers and Williamson County Sheriff’s Department will periodically be patrolling the parking areas and we will request that cars are moved if they are parked in the wrong areas. If a car is parked illegally citations may be issued or your vehicle may be towed by Williamson County without any warning. Additionally, they ask that everyone please watch his or her speed in the neighborhood. The parking plan includes angled parking along a busy street that families will be crossing. We want everyone to be safe.

The parking lot directly in front of the pool will be available on a first come first serve basis – limited members of their team will park in the pool parking lot. Parents should tell the parking attendants which team they are with when they arrive. You will also be able to unload before parking if there are no more spots in the pool parking lot. Parents should not park on the traffic circle or grass for any reason.

Parking priority is as follows:

• FIRST – Pool Parking/Angle parking on Sendero Springs Drive
• SECOND - Hatch House parking lot (3 minute walk to the pool). Please do not park in the businesses on the east side of the intersection as some of them are open on Saturday and we want to respect them and their customers.
• THIRD - Specified and limited neighborhood parking ONLY IF NECESSARY
• NOTE - Swimmers and items can be dropped off at pool

They ask that families bring 1 vehicle and carpool where possible. It is very important that parents follow this map to where parking is allowed. There will be parking volunteers to help direct people, but please only park in places where parking is permitted as per the attached map. Green shading is parallel parking any areas that are red are no parking areas.

Parking Map for Brushy Creek

Our tent area will be inside the tent area, I will send a picture with my meet info email later in the week. 

This is a tri meet, meaning 3 teams are competing, please expect it to run long, however it is an 8 lane pool, so hope it runs early.

Big thanks to everyone this week while I was out, especially Paul coming back and helping us out, and DJ Loberg who is learning to be our Assistant Meet Director! I'll be back this week, see you at the pool!

by: Justin Anderson, Volunteer Coordinator

What an AMAZING meet we had on Saturday! To reiterate my point from last weekend, these meets are only as successful as our parent volunteers willing to be on top of their positions. Our guest meet director, Paul, was very impressed with how we ran the meet.

Now we get to take a week off from hosting, but away meets bring their own sets of challenges, and not just figuring out where to park…this will be a tri-meet (3 teams in total) so it may run a little longer than the last two we’ve had. But I know that if we bring the same enthusiasm to our volunteer positions it will be a positive experience  

If your kids are registered to swim but you haven't claimed a volunteer shift yet, please log in and do so. I'll begin sending emails again this week to update on positions we need filled! 

As we head into our 2nd half of the season we wanted to send a reminder out to those swimmers who are trying to earn the High Point Award!

High Point Earners
Armada has a requirement that anyone receiving the regular season-high point award has swum all individual events offered for their age group for which they do not have to "swim up." To qualify, swimmers must have swum at regular season meets where points may be earned (ie, not at the Red, White, and Blue meet, nor at Divisionals). Please note that the swimmer must have attempted the event in a regular season meet, but need not have obtained a legal time (so if DQ'd, that counts as their attempt). Also, events entered at a rained-out meet also count as their attempt, provided the swimmer is listed on the official attendance report.

This policy is discussed in detail in the FAQ section of our website. 

These WB Armada swimmers excelled by placing first in one, two, or three events at the meet this past Saturday. Congratulations!

These WB Armada swimmers and their teammates excelled by placing first in the Medley or Freestyle Relays against the Steiner Ranch Stars Red! Congratulations Swimmers!

The following swimmers achieved a Triple Drop (improved their time in all three of their individual events) at the meet this past Saturday:

Each week the WBA honors the swimmers in each age group who record the largest time improvement. Fast Fishy times are based on times from the current season only. In swimming, the goal is to try to beat yourself each week by recording a personal best.

This past week we had four new swimmers qualify for Invitationals in six events! Additionally, we had 6 swimmers who had previously posted Invitational times, qualify in an additional 8 events which are noted below in bold-italic. (alpha order by last name)