The Morning Swim Show, Jan. 6, 2012: St. Andrew’s Relives Road to Junior National Team Title

PHOENIX, Arizona, January 6. WITH only four girls, the St. Andrew's School managed to win the women's team title at the recent junior nationals, and all four girls, as well as coach Sid Cassidy, join The Morning Swim Show today to talk about the feat.

The girls talk about the heavy schedule they had to endure to score enough points for the win, how crucial relays were and what their emotions were like throughout the meet. Cassidy also details how he felt after the first few events, when the team took the lead in points, and how they worked together to accomplish the win. Watch the full show in the video player below and visit SwimmingWorld.TV for more video interviews.

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Morning Swim Show Transcripts
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(Note: This is an automated service where some typos and grammatical errors may occur.)

Peter Busch: This is The Morning Swim Show for Friday, January 6th 2012. I'm your host, Peter Busch. We have an incredible story to share for today's show. In the FINIS monitor we'll have the only four girls on the Saint Andrew's Swim Team in Boca Raton, Florida. But despite the small team they just won the short course Junior National Championships last month. So let's meet them right now in the FINIS monitor. Hello ladies, how are you doing?

All: Hi.

Peter Busch: And coach, we should say. Megan Moroney, raise your hand please. And you're the freshman, right?

Megan Moroney: Yes.

Peter Busch: Okay, Lindsey McKnight raise your hand.

Lindsey McKnight: Hi.

Peter Busch: You're the senior. Tasija Karosas.

Tasija Karosas: Hi.

Peter Busch: You're the junior. And Brenna Ruth.

Brenna Ruth: Hi.

Peter Busch: Sophomore. So one from each class and Coach Sid Cassidy, who many in the swimming world already know. Thank you all again for coming on. So you've got the dream team here, Coach.

Sid Cassidy: I felt like it in Austin, that's for sure.

Peter Busch: So how do you pull off winning the Junior Nationals, which is no short feat and which usually goes to bigger, more powerful clubs with only four girls?

Sid Cassidy: Well we had a pasta dinner the night before we left and I told the girls – we handed out some equipment and said "Listen, you've got a chance because we're entered in all five relays and seeded fairly well. And if you all jump up and score well and really swim the relays… And it wasn't like it was our team goal, and we have to do it. But we had a couple of great leaders, especially Lindsey winning the high point and Tasija scoring in the back after that, and Megan got out as well a lot of good events herself so we said "Brenna , come along, you're going to do relays with us" and it just kind of fell into place, it really did.

Peter Busch: So you won two of the relays, 200-yard medley relay actually broke a record. Tasija, you were the backstroke split, right?

Tasija Karosas: Yes, I was.

Peter Busch: 25.4, Lindsey goes 27.1 in the breaststroke, phenomenal, 25.4 from Megan on the fly, and Brenna 23.6 in the freestyle – that must have felt pretty cool.

Tasija Karosas: Yes, it was like we weren't expecting – we weren't expecting to kind of win it, but after the prelims like we kind of realized that we had a shot of winning it, and that was really cool.

Peter Busch: Lindsey, you're the only senior, right?

Lindsey McKnight: Yes, that's right.

Peter Busch: You won the 100 and 200 freestyle?

Lindsey McKnight: Yes.

Peter Busch: How many events total did you swim?

Lindsey McKnight: Well I swam the 50, the 100, the 200 free, the 200 IM, the 200 breast, the 200 fly, and then the five relays.

Peter Busch: So you're a little tired at the end of the meet?

Lindsey McKnight: What?

Peter Busch: You were a little tired at the end of the meet?

Lindsey McKnight: Oh yes, I definitely felt it in the 200 fly on the last day. It hurt, but just the fact that I was swimming for the team. We actually had a shot of winning the whole meet, so I was happy with it.

Sid Cassidy: You know, Peter, she had herself the Honey Badger nickname at that meet.

Peter Busch: Lindsey, what great experience for you because you're going to Florida next year, where they not only train hard but it's college swimming, you'll have to swim a lot of events at the big meet if you qualify so it's perfect.

Lindsey McKnight: Yes, exactly. I mean a lot of people were saying like "Oh yeah, you might as well get used to swimming that many events now because next year and years after that I'll probably be doing the same thing."

Peter Busch: Now Tasija you swam a lot of events as well and I imagine some college coaches were taking notice of your great swimming as well.

Tasija Karosas: Yes, that's what I was looking for, going out there and swimming my best, getting those college teams to notice.

Peter Busch: Sid, I know you're a big open water guy. Do you train these girls in the ocean sometimes or is it all pool swimming?

Sid Cassidy: Oh we do get in ocean swimming now and then. As a matter of fact, Saturday we're going down to Bruce Wigo's Ocean Race for the International Swimming Hall of Fame, so that's going to be a big one for us but it's only a mile, it will be big in terms of numbers, about 200 people there, but for the most part these four focus primarily on the pool although Megan has shown some great success in middle distance, distance and open water swimming. She just does everything professionally, she's been pretty phenomenal so far this year.

Peter Busch: Megan, you're just a freshman, right?

Megan Moroney: Yes, I am.

Peter Busch: Well this must be pretty cool, freshman year and you get to be a part of a national championship team?

Megan Moroney: Yes, it's really cool and really fun, like they said before I wasn't expecting it.

Peter Busch: And Brenna you're a sophomore, how did you end up at Saint Andrews? Tell us about the school a little bit.

Brenna Ruth: I love it here, it's like family to me. I've only been here a year, since my freshman year and I've really loved it ever since we moved here, it's just great.

Peter Busch: Do you guys have the team trophy to show off?

Sid Cassidy: Yes, we do. Hold it up there, it's a glass trophy, you might want to hold it a little closer, I don't know how. They give a beautiful – it's a very nice award and I was really proud of these girls and of course we have a pretty good sized team here at home, these were the only four girls ,we had two boysgo with us as well, they swam best times, it was just very exciting. I have been a coach since '79, so to win a national trophy, an 18-and-under title or whatever, it was pretty exciting , so I'm really proud of all these ladies.

Peter Busch: How close was the final point total?

Sid Cassidy: 17 points – Dynamo Swim Club, one of the top clubs in the nation of course and I know Coach Jason Turcotte does a great job up there. We were pretty excited to get ahead of them, they're a tough team.

Peter Busch: Sid, there had to have been other swimmers and coaches coming up to you guys throughout the meet just going "Oh my gosh, you guys could win this thing. I can't believe it."

Sid Cassidy: Well one of my buddies came up at the end of the first night and actually the girls got fifth in the first relay and they put the top six teams up, you know, that beautiful board at Texas- they're in the top six, and then the IM came up and both Lindsey and Tasija scored very well in that and we were all of a sudden jumping into first place after the second or third event of the meet the guys said "Take a picture, take a picture" and I said "Don't jinx yourself, you want to take that at the end" and the guy was looking at me and said "You might not be there at the end." "Well yes but we might" and it was something that I felt they learned a great lesson because we like believe a lot in relays, in teamwork. This team didn't exist five years ago, when I moved here, I guess five, six years now that we've been a team at St. Andrew's in Boca Raton, so it's – having a group of people that believe in each other and work with each other and especially I think the end of these two weeks some of our holiday training as we've gone off they really needed to rely on each other a lot so it was surely exciting.

Peter Busch: Well congratulations, it's a heck of a story, it really is, and we're so glad that we could help share it here on Swimming World.

Sid Cassidy: Thank you, Peter, we appreciate your time.

All: Thank you.

Peter Busch: Congratulations, ladies, Happy New Year. All right, see you Coach, see you ladies.

All: Bye.

Peter Busch: What a cool story today in the FINIS monitor – very, very nice. Well that is it for today's show, I'm Peter Busch reminding you to keep your head down at the finish.

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