Bob Jones hosted the Patriot Invitational swim meet at Dublin Park on September 18th. Head Coach Thaxton chose to place some of the team’s newest members on the A-relays for this first home meet. These young swimmers definitely showed that they can handle their own against the juniors and seniors, though. “The takeaway from the meet for the girls is to focus on each swim and race, if we do that we will be very successful. Takeaway for the boys is to continue to work hard at practice… The hard work is definitely paying off for them early in the season already.”

The girls won first place by two seconds in the Medley relay Joanne Stevens (11), Jessica Nguyen (7), Sabrina Grace (7), Anna Grace Pell (12). Also first place went to the girls in the 400 Free relay Devin Campbell (12), Joanne Stevens (11), Lucy Ramsey (7), Grace Palenapa (11) by half a second, just out touching the James Clemens team.

The boys 200 Medley relay (Bryson Tesseneer (8), Logan Black (12), Vaughn Barnhart (10), Marshall Wu (12) came in second place, only by .02, behind the James Clemens relay team. Our boys came back in the 200 Free relay Joe Palenapa (9), Jake Palenapa (9), Marshall Wu (12), Vaughn Barnhart (10) and the 400 Free relay (Vaughn Barnhart (10), Joe Palenapa (9), Warren He (12), Logan Black (12).

An event that Bob Jones has always done is have the seniors on the team invite their own “Celebrity Teacher” to the meet. Marshall Wu invited Mrs. Gaines to watch him swim at the first home meet of the season. Logan Black asked Mrs. Bergeson to be his celebrity teacher. Devin Campbell chose Mrs. Schutzbach and Anna Grace Pell chose Mrs. Schwartz. All of the celebrity teachers were recognized by Coach Thaxton before the meet began.

Coach Thaxton said that he is hoping the team will improve at each meet this season. “Hard work and buy in will give us what we need to improve… My expectations are high, I want us to go into the State Meet with a chance for both the girls and boys to win a championship.”

The final results showed that the Bob Jones boys team won first place by 12 points, totalling at 144 points overall. High point winners for the boys were: Logan Black and Joe Palenapa both scoring 15 for the team and Bryson Tesseneer scoring 12 points. The girls team scored in at second place, behind James Clemens by 1 point, coming in at 134 points total for the meet. The high point winners for the girls were: Devin Campbell scoring 15, Mia Fries scoring 13, and Joanne Stevens scoring 12 points. The Patriots definitely started off the season on the right foot!