On Ttuesday, March 2nd, the Cabrini Swim team traveled to Bloomfield Hills Cranbrook Kingswood for a double dual with Cranbrook and Ann Arbor Fr. Gabriel Richard (AAGR). They followed that up with their final home meet of the season on Thursday, March 4th, when they squared off against Allen Park for their annual Parent/Senior night event.  Cabrini ended up on the losing end of the team scores both evenings with scores of Cranbrook 134 - Cabrini 32 and AAGR 136 - Cabrini 32 on Tuesday and Allen Park 113 - Cabrini 58.  On the personal side of the results, the Monarchs ended up with 24 season/personal best times on Tuesday and 25 season/personal best times on Thursday.  Both evenings were filled with exciting races and amazing finishes.  Here are some of the highlights from both evenings.

Tuesday, the Monarchs kicked off the evening with a season best swim in the Medley Relay, from the team of Freshman Drew Bylow, Seniors Max Iglesias and Thomas Day, and Junior  Lily Heath.  Bylow jumped back into the pool in the very next event for his first individual performance of the evening and turned in a personal best swim in the 200 Freestyle along with teammate Kyra Roth who also PR'd in the event.  Bylow jumped back up on the starting blocks for his second individual swim in the 100 Freestyle with fellow sprinter Day and PR'd for a second time, with he and Day taking second and third respectively. The duo swam together one last time for the night in the 200 Freestyle Relay, swimming another season best time with Heath and Iglesias.  Heath had just finished the 500 Freestyle one event earlier, setting a PR with a swim that crushed her previous time by nearly 20 seconds and finishing fourth overall.  The 400 Freestyle Relay team of Brendan Fix, Riley Bonar, Roth and Iglesias were the final highlights on the night with Fix ang Iglesias scoring season best splits to close the competition.  It was exciting from start to finish for all of us.  We couldn't believe the number of great swims that came out, especially from some of our athletes that swam back to back events. We need to keep this momentum going through the rest of the week with our next tough test coming in two days at Allen Park. 

Thursday brought Allen Park and St. Frances Cabrini together once again to celebrate the impending conclusion of another dual meet season by honoring each team's athletes and parents along with saying farewell to 13 seniors, six from Allen Park and seven from Cabrini.  The evening started out with an exciting race in the 200 Medley Relay with the Jaguars edging out the Monarchs in the final two legs.  The time from Drew Bylow, Thomas Day, Max Iglesias and Lily Heath was still good enough to be less than two tenths of a second off their season best mark.  Next, Cabrini sophomores Taylor Bonar and Marin Genaw stepped up to swim the 200 Freestyle and turned in two PR swims to start their evening  Both crushing their old marks by over 10 seconds.  Bylow followed that up with a PR swim in the 200 Individual Medley and scored the first of three first place swims for the night.

The Monarchs' Day, Heath and Iglesias dove into the pool in the 50 Freestyle with Day scoring the second first place finish of the evening with Heath and Iglesias finishing on his heels in fourth and fifth respectively, winning the event for Cabrini.  Iglesias was up next in the 100 Butterfly, turning in a PR performance in his return to the event.  Heath followed her sprint performance with a PR swim in the 500 Freestyle that netted her a third place finish in the most exciting individual event of the evening. Heath raced the two Jaguar harriers the entire distance to score her record breaking swim. 

Heath then jumped out of the pool and partnered with Bylow, Iglesias and Day for the 200 Freestyle Relay.  The race set the entire pool on fire. Bylow gave the Monarchs the early lead.  The Jaguars then took a good lead after the second leg had finished. Then Heath jumped in for her third leg, closing the gap on the Jaguars after just finishing her PR swim in the 500. The Jags had just over a two body length lead when Day jumped in for the anchor leg.  By the turn, Day had nearly made up the stagger.  With 25 yards to go, Day found another gear and caught the Jags anchor.  When the mist settled, Day had out touched the Jags by less than a second.  It turned out to be Day's PR for the split.  The Monarchs finished the evenings individual events with Bylow and Day taking second in the 100 Backstroke and 100 Breaststroke respectively.  The final event of the evening brought two more PR splits for the Monarchs by Lauren Schulte and Chris Russelburg in the 400 Freestyle Relay.

As Coach Paul Lacroix looked back on the week, he was a bit skeptical as to how the team would handle their first two meet week of the season.  He realized that he underestimated the spirit and momentum his team had been building during the past several weeks of competition.  He was both thankful and proud, that in the end, their performances proved his skepticism to be unwarranted. The Monarchs have one final dual meet next week as they travel to Warren Woods Tower for a dual meet with Warren De LaSalle on Tuesday, March 9th.  It was a great week to be a Monarch!