Thank You for a Fantastic Season, Piranhas! 🐟❤️💙

July 26th

Dear Pinecrest Families,

What a summer it’s been! As the cheers fade and the chlorine settles, we want to take a moment to thank you all for being a part of such an incredible season with the Pinecrest Piranhas Swim & Dive Team.

Be sure to read all the way to the bottom for updates on Polar Piranhas (swim & dive!) and links to the 2026 slideshow and full season photo album—you won’t want to miss them!

🏊 Swim Team Highlights

We finished the season strong at 3-2, smashing pool records and cheering each other on:

🏊 Pinecrest Season Improvement Summary

Total time dropped: 1,454.79 seconds (That is 24 minutes, 14.79 seconds of cumulative improvement across the team!)
Personal bests achieved: 994!
Records shattered: 6

🏆 Record Breakers:

Ken White broke his own records in breaststroke (29.21 to 28.95) AND IM (from 57.78 to 57.61)
The long-standing freestyle record was tied by Ken White at 24.37, then in an absolutely thrilling race, was beaten by both Charles Gibson (24.32) and Elijah Koh, who ultimately set the new pool record of 24.11!
Elijah Koh broke a 26-year old record in butterfly (25.99 set in 2000, to 25.66)

🌟 All-Star Qualifiers:

Congratulations to our Piranhas who qualified for All-Stars this year:

Joey Dunlavy – Freestyle & Butterfly
Evelyn Knight – Freestyle & Butterfly
Elijah Koh - Freestyle & Butterfly
Charles Gibson – Freestyle
David Lear – Backstroke & IM
Molly Ahearn – Backstroke
Bobby Ferssizidis - Backstroke
Ken White – Breaststroke & IM
Tenley Manning – Butterfly

🤸 Dive Team Highlights

As we wrap up an incredible dive season, I want to congratulate everyone on a fantastic finish. Our diving Piranhas closed out the regular season with a win at our final home meet against Hamlet. We then sent 15 divers to Divisionals with several earning top-ten finishes—congratulations on those outstanding performances! Thank you to all of our athletes, coaches, and families for their hard work, dedication, and support throughout the season. We couldn't be prouder of everything this team accomplished!

🥽 Divers Who Competed in Divisionals

Peyton Davis
Taylor Davis
Sia Ferssizidis
Nora Kalfus
Liani Kopek
Paige Nelson
Tenley Manning
Tess Schauder
Patrick Cochrane
Erin Edwards
Chrissy Poole
Ryan Kalfus
Caris Allen
John Paul Ryan
Connor Ryan

🌟 Dive All-Star Qualifiers:

Congratulations to the following divers who placed 1st or 2nd at Divisionals and qualified for the NVSL Dive All-Star Meet. They will be diving on August 2nd at Fairfax Pool:

Chrissy Poole
Connor Ryan

👏 All-Star Alternates (4th place at Divisionals):

Taylor Davis
John Paul Ryan
Nora Kalfus

🎖️ Award Recap

Dive Team

Most Improved: Catherine Schauder
MVPs: John Paul Ryan
Heart of the Team: Liani Kopek
Rookie of the Season: Lucy Mallon
Most Spirited: Erin Edwards
Coaches Awards:
- Coach Connor – Chrissy Poole
- Coach Devon – Peyton Davis
- Coach Aggie – Patrick Cochrane
High Point:
- Tessa Schauder, Taylor Davis, Peyton Davis, Connor Ryan, Erin Edwards, Christopher Poole, and John Paul Ryan

Swim Team

Coach Awards:
- Kevin – Bobby Ferssizidis
- Ashlyn – Evelyn Knight
- Liam – Lavinia Hosack
- Maya – David Lear
- Charles – Taylor Davis
- Isla - LJ Harris
- Carlyn - Clara Mallon
- Ken - Erik Sandness
- Sebi - Hudson Harris
- Santiago - Shea Pierce
- Kayla - Kelly Pancione
Item Awards:
- Most Coachable: Daphne Holler & Luke Stewart
- Most Improved: Raelyn Ly & Oliver Moore
- Most Spirited: Talia Essen & Luke Mussen
Shirt Awards:
- Super Duck - awarded for total time drops of 10 seconds or greater (not including IM):
  - Liam Ahearn (largest total time drop - 37.35 seconds), Hudson Harris, Madeline Moore, Luke Stewart, Zoey Tivel, Hannah Milburn, Tristan Sasala, Raelyn Ly, Colton Meiklejohn, Clara Mallon, Drew Cochrane, Clara Neidermeyer, Ava Cruz-Skidmore, Mikey Dunlavy, Gabriel Martinez, Yvonne Diaz, Dolan Ahearn, Isaac Mitchell, Clara McCarty, Felicity Sasala, Camden Harris, Amelia Lee, Lucy McClean, Oliver Moore, Lena Majer, Rory Pierce, Sebastian Martinez, Riley Anderson, Amelia Huerta, Olivia Lee, Evie Cabrera, Mannex Barber, Lucy Mallon & Victoria Sasala
- High Point - awarded for total individual points of 20 or more:
  - Joey Dunlavy (48 points - a nearly perfect season!), Bobby Ferssizidis, Ken White, Molly Ahearn, Kayla Zheng, Elijah Koh, Evelyn Knight, Tenley Manning, Micah Tivel, David Lear, Brady Haymond, Cole Willerth, Alex Ferssizidis, Elsa Sandness, Gabrielle Le, Natalie Shlesinger & Erik Sandness
Snoopy Award: Passed from last year’s winner Lucy Mallon to Cole Willerth
Red vs. Blue Trophy: Red Team takes the win!

🎓 Senior Send-Off

A heartfelt thank you and best wishes to our graduating seniors:

Liam, Hannah, Isa, Aiden, Adelynne, Eli, Luke, Fiona, Ken, and Emma — you’ve left your mark, and we’re so proud of you.

📸 Photos & Slideshow

Relive the memories! Here’s a link to the 2026 season slideshow, created by Rebecca Gibson and filled with moments captured by our team photographer, Zach Gibson and a spectacular video created by Connor Ryan. Please remember to save/download any photos you would like to keep, as they will be removed from the album before next season begins:

📷 Slideshow

📽️ 2026 Swim & Dive Photo Album

📹 Slideshow Archives

🙏 Thank You, Volunteers!

This team runs on caffeine, swim caps, and an army of amazing volunteers. A few special shoutouts:

Paul & Abbie Shlesinger – Volunteer Coordinators
Dianna Knight – Social ChairsLisa Harris & Jill Moore – Concessions
Zach Gibson – Team Photographer (with slideshow production by Rebecca Gibson and video by Connor Ryan)
Bryan Haymond – Set-up & Take-down Lead
Seth Edwards & Gurkie Cheng – Data
Hillary Chan & Cindy Helffrich – B Meet Reps
Amy Kalfus – Dive Rep
Jill Moore, Cody Ingram & Sam DeLuca - Concessions Team
Rebecca Gibson - Team Manager
Richard Knight - Board Rep Extraordinaire
Aislinn Kopek, Sue Edwards, Patty Ferssizidis, Jo & Jacquin Allen - Volunteers who help make Dive meets possible!

To everyone who volunteered—thank you for bringing your time, energy, and good humor to the pool deck all season long.

👏 Coach Appreciation

To our incredible coaching staff—thank you for teaching, guiding, and inspiring our swimmers and divers all summer. You helped build confidence, character, and a whole lot of fast races and daring dives. We appreciate all you do.

📝 End-of-Season Survey

Please take a few minutes to complete our end-of-year survey. We read every response and use your feedback to make next season even better:

❄️ Polar Piranhas

Stay tuned! Information on the fall/winter Polar Piranhas program will be coming in August. If you're interested, help us by filling out this quick interest form:

👉 Interest Form

🎁 Thank you to our Sponsors

We would be remiss to not mention our sponsors - Three Birds Consulting, Chi Mc, Potomac Marlins Swim Club, Goldfish Swim School, Worldgate Athletic Club & Spa, PT Weather and Dev Technology Group. Wegmans also deserves a huge thanks, as they generously donated donuts for our last fun day of the season. We would also like to thank Reston Community Center, for sponsoring our indoor practice when the air quality was too poor to be outdoors, as well as Mr Duggan from South Lakes High School for allowing us to hold our lip-sync pep rally indoors! We will have “thank you” cards hanging up in the guard shack - please stop by to sign them when you can.

🏅Final Reminder – Pick Up Your Ribbons & Medals!

Please make sure to check your family folder at the pool and pick up any remaining medals, ribbons, or other awards by the end of August. Anything left behind will be packed away with the team supplies and repurposed next year.

Thanks for making this summer one to remember. Once a Piranha, always a Piranha. 🐟💙❤️

Warmly,

The Pinecrest Swim & Dive Team Reps