Friday, Sept 17th -  Starts, Turns, Racing Clinic for 9 and older swimmers (4:30-5:45PM)
Friday, Oct 8th- Bowling at Don Carter's , 4:30PM-6:00PM
Friday, Oct 29th-Starts, Turns, Racing Clinic (4:30-5:45PM)
Friday, Nov 5th-  Fun Friday- 4:30-6:00PM for pool fun and games in the indoor pool (outdoor pool, based on weather)!  We will take the ropes out and have some FUN! 

No Practice Monday, September 6th – Happy Labor Day!
No Practice Tuesday, September 7th- Come watch Stanford vs Centenary college swim meet at CA!

Blue- Wed/Thurs Swim, 4:00-6:15 
Red-   Wed/Thurs Swim, 4:00-5:30
White- Wed/Thurs, swim 4:30-6:15; Th dryland 4:00-4:30
Yellow- Wed/Thurs, swim 5:30-7:00; no dryland
Green- Wed/Thurs, 4:30-5:30
Swim School- regular practice schedule 4:30 & 5:30 groups- Wed/Thurs only

We look forward to the kick off the new swimming season with a our 12th annual team intrasquad meet on Saturday, September 11.  The meet will offer competition in the age groups of 8 & U, 9-10, 11-12 and 13 & over.  Events for 8 & under swimmers will be the 25’s of each stroke and the 100 IM, and for  9-10, 11-12, 13 & over  swimmers the 50’s of each stroke plus the 100 IM.  All Crawfish Aquatics families should attend this TEAM event- regardless of meet experience!    

Desserts: We are asking for families to bring a dessert, fruit, or snack to the meet. Lunch & drinks will be provided by Crawfish!

Entries:    Coaches will generate the entries for all swimmers. All swimmers may swim 2 events in this meet. Due to this meet falling on the 3^rd week of Swim School practices and the seasonal practice plans/focus at this time, all Swim School Swimmers will be entered in Free/Back events for this meet. Sign up on Meets Board.

All year-round swimmers will be automatically entered into the meet.
The meet entry deadline will be Wednesday, September 8.

Additional Meet Info:  Warm-up will begin at 8:00AM and the meet will begin at 8:45AM.   Meet will finish by 11:00AM, followed by lunch and team social. 

Team Apparel- Red Crawfish Shirts & Crawfish swim cap

The new team suit is a TYR Alliance Durafast™ Splice line. It is the highest quality 100% polyester material suit TYR makes with durable fabric that is to last 20 times longer than traditional swimwear.

Guidelines for Official Team Suit: Swimmers in the Green, Yellow, White, Red and Blue group are required to wear the official Crawfish Aquatics team suit. Swim School Swimmers are highly encouraged to outfit in a team suit also, however due to the competition option for the developmental groups the team suit is not required. Swimmers can use any training-style swimsuit (ie, no baggy swim trunks/shorts) during practices, as long as it is the proper size and fit for the individual swimmer. Please save team suits for meets only. Technical suits are to be reserved for coach-designated meets or championship level meets. 

Goal: swimmers in the team suit by our first “official” meet of the season, the Crawfish Aquatics Fall Invitational (Oct 23-24).

Official requirement deadline: December Tri Meet, then going forward

Team Suit Orders & Payment Process:
Team Suit Orders can be placed between Thursday, September 2and Saturday, September 18. There will be a sizing kit here at Crawfish Aquatics (Info Booth) and at Natal Swim Shop. Orders can be placed at Crawfish with a provided order form and a check made out to Natal Swim Shop, cash payment, or credit card information for Natal. We will not offer bank draft or credit card charge by Crawfish Aquatics for the team suit orders.  You can also call Natal Swim Shop to order/pay by phone, or go to the store to place order and make payment.

The Crawfish logo is an optional addition to your team suit, but not required.  

Natal Swim Shop is giving swimmers a 20% discount on the new team suit! (5733 Essen Lane, 225.765.7380). After this initial order (from Sept 2-18) with option of placing order at CA or Natal, all future orders will be done at Natal Swim Shop. 

New Team Suit Info:

$56 girls suit (both strap types- thin and wide)- Black suit with Red accent
View suit here:
http://www.tyr.com/shop/splices-durafast%E2%84%A2-polyester-c-30_31_45_199.html

$36.80  jammer- Black suit with Red accent
$33.60 square leg (short jammer)- Black suit with Red accent
$30.40  brief- Black suit with Red accent
View suit here:
 http://www.tyr.com/shop/splices-durafast%E2%84%A2-polyester-c-1_2_13_200.html

Alternate Suit for 8 & U Swimmers, Swim School Groups- Dolfin Suit
Natal Swim Shop is offering another suit option 8 & Under swimmers- it is a solid black suit made by Dolfin. They will also include complimentary logo monogramming with suit purchase. 
-Female suit is $29.75 plus tax (option of thick strap or the thin strap)
-Male jammer is $21.50 plus tax

-All suits are lycra material
-8 & U swimmers in the Green group must outfit in the TYR suit

HUGE THANKS to the parents, swimmers and masters swimmers that gave their time on Sunday to assist us with the facility clean up and continual preparation for the season kick off August 23rd. Volunteers assembled bleachers in the heat of the day; cleaned dust and debris from the track, deck, Info Booth, Meet Booth, Peek A Boo playland and Think Tank; created new organizational ideas for the Info Booth; in addition to many other odds/ends following 3 weeks of construction.
With the facility and deck area clean we are able to begin the process of filling the pool & preparing the water for the week of Aug 23rd.

Please take note of the adjusted schedule for the week of the 16th with all groups utilizing the outdoor pool.

Check out the progress along with other facility construction by viewing the photo gallery here: http://www.crawfishaquatics.com/photo-gallery/view/29

While the swimmers and families are enjoying time away from practice, your CA staff is hard at work preparing an exciting fall season for you. Planning is going well and preparations are being made to make some group structure changes and special events- more to come soon. Facility-wise there are numerous upgrades being made…pool tile replacement, major bulkhead repair, new flooring in the back hallway, lighting updates…and the most exciting… pool deck expansion via doors along the glass wall! Another exciting addition is the new study room- the Crawfish Aquatics Think Tank- which will open at the end of August.  Check out the room in progress along with other facility construction by viewing the  photo gallery here:  http://www.crawfishaquatics.com/photo-gallery/view/29

The Don Cook Memorial Award was established in 1969 by former teammates of Don Cook, a 1966 graduate of Catholic High who was killed in action during the Vietnam War. The award is given to the female and male Baton Rouge swimmer who scores the most points at the Short Course and Long Course State Championship each year.
The award consists of a rotating plaque with the each recipient receiving a permanent plaque. This year both recipients are from Crawfish Aquatics- Hannah Foster, scoring 272 points for 10 & U girls (of a possible 280) and Colin Bone, scoring 265 (of possible 280) for the 11-12 boys. Congrats to you both! (awards will be delivered to CA at the end of August).

We are pleased to announce that this fall we will be opening the Crawfish Aquatics Think Tank- a study and homework room for CA and Exerfit families to use in the afternoons while at the pool. It will be open Mon-Thur from 3:30-6:30PM and available for swimmers to check in prior to or following practice to get their studies done while not in practice! This room will have a proctor/supervisor and children will sign in/sign out; studying and homework use will be heavily enforced! There are a few pictures of the room-in-progress on the website Facility Updates photo album and we will provide more information regarding room rules, internet/computer use waivers, etc. in upcoming E-News. We are excited to make this new feature available to our families.

Congratulations to the swimmers on the LA Zones team on a successful meet this past week in Atlanta (Gage Alleman, Cameron Balkom, Colin Bone, Austin Butler, Hannah Core, Connor Futch, Alex Miller, John Miller, MK Miller, John Michael Moore, Victoria Padial). Overall the LA Zones team finished 9th at the meet.

ALL Crawfish swimmers swam one or lifetime bests following their state meet performance, in addition to several Top 10 finishes and team scoring:
Gage - 8th place finish- 200 back
Cameron- 2nd place finish- 100 breast
Austin- 1st place finish- 50 free, 4th place finish- 100 free
John Michael- 1st place finish- 100 back, 6th place finish- 100 fly

See the full results here: http://results.teamunify.com/gsdsc/

9 new team records!
Colin Bone- 50, 100, 200 free
Gage- 200 back
Austin Butler- 50 free (New Record Breaker)
MK Miller- 400 IM
JM Moore- 100 back
Cameron Balkom- 100 Breast (New Record Breaker)
Alex Miller- 200 fly (New Record Breaker)

Try us out Week:    August 17, 18, 19 (Tues-Thurs)

4:30 – 5:15 5-8yrs. And 5:15 - 6:00 9-13yrs
No fee or pre-registration required!

Description: Swim school is a stroke & technique development swim team program. Most swimmers 13 & under begin here. 2 & 4 day practice options are available- great for children involved in multiple sports! There will be 3-4 meet opportunities during the fall along with clinics on select Fridays.

The Crawfish team has had the great privilege of having Coach Mark Ranatza on our staff for the past 4 years and wish him the best as he moves to New Orleans this week in preparation to enter the Nursing program at LSU this fall. During his time at Crawfish he has coached all ages/skills of Swim School, Green, Yellow, White groups and High School Squad. For the past 3 middle school seasons, he has directed the training groups at our facility and did an excellent job as a Crawfish representative for those new swimmers and families. Coach Mark has been a true team player- a valued trait that cannot be taught- he has shown leadership and helped to bring up the level of all of our age group programs. He has made the swimmers laugh, pumped them up and guided them to reach for their goals. We are happy to know that friends and LSU football will bring Mark back in our direction from time to time and look forward to updates from him as he begins this new stage. Thanks Coach Mark, you will be missed!

Way to go Crawfish!

We will miss our seniors, Eric Thomas (the last original Crawfish), Austin Butler, and Matthieu Assercq, and we wish them all the best in their college endeavors. We also wish all the best to the Foster’s with their move to Cincinnati.

We will especially miss Mr. Bruce Thomas and Mr. Jean Marie Assercq who have so generously donated countless hours of time to officiate the many meets we host in addition to the state championships.  I look forward to a new group of officials from Crawfish to follow the examples that were set by these men which have allowed us to run numerous meets at our home pool.  They are big shoes to fill.

I applaud the work of our coaching staff in their preparation of our swimmers for the competition in the pool and the many life lessons that they face outside of the pool.  My thanks to Coach Courtney for her tireless leadership and education of our excellent staff.

Finally, I applaud our swimmers. The quality of people we are allowed to work with make this job gratifying beyond measure.

WELL DONE!!!!!!
Coach Billy

Below are some of the many highlights of last weekend’s competition:

Age Group High Point:  Hannah Foster, Colin Bone, and John Michael Moore

Zone Team Selections: Austin Butler, John Michael Moore, Hannah Core, Cameron Balkom, John Miller, Gage Alleman, MK Miller, Alex Miller, Victoria Padial, Connor Futch, Colin Bone

Spirit Award:  Crawfish Aquatics

Team Records:  
Gage Alleman-  200 back 
Claudia Apsey-  800 free and 1500 free
Colin Bone- 100 free,  100 fly and 50 free 
Hannah Foster- 100 free
Carson Foster-  50 back, 100 fly, 200 IM, 50 free, and 50 fly 
Jake Foster-  50 breast and 100 breast
Connor Futch - 100 back 
MK Miller- 400 IM,  200 Breast and 200 IM
John Michael Moore-  100 back
10 & U Girls Free Relay- Annalane Lee, Jolee Liles, Jordan Slater, Hannah Foster
11-12 Boys Free Relay- Connor Futch, Jacob Bares, Baker Bradley, Colin Bone
13-14 Girls Medley Relay- Caroline Beene, MK Miller, Alex Miller, Victoria Padial

Full Results
Scores

http://www.youtube.com/user/CrawfishAquatics
Coach Thomas, Lafayette Team Site Director, has set up a You Tube video channel for posting numerous swim videos ranging from clinic videos, individual technique analysis and video from professional swim meets. This is a great resource for our swimmers and updated regularly with new video. Coach Thomas will video and post footage from the Intrasquad meet and Gold Medal Clinic… check it out!