2025 Florida Swimming Spring Senior Champs
- March 13-16, 2025
- Rosen Aquatic & Fitness Center, Orlando, Florida
- Short Course Yards (25 yards)
- Meet Site
- Psych Sheets
- Livestream
- Results Here (Post-Session) or Live on Meet Mobile: “2025 Florida Swimming Spring Senior Champs”
- Day 1 Recap | Day 2 Recap
A pair of wins from Penelope Zarczynski and a pair from Ethan Ekk highlighted day 3 of the Florida Swimming Spring Senior Championships, while Brinkleigh Hansen continued her distance dominance in Orlando.
Zarczynski opened the meet with a win in the 50 free in 22.89, beating out Maeve Eckerman (22.97), Isabella Dieffenthaller (22.99), and Blakely Hammel (23.00) in a tight finish.
Zarczynski, a Yale commit, is the defending Florida Class 3 State Champion in that event. Eckerman and Dieffenthaller both dropped best times for their podium results.
That race was absent the would-be favorite 15-year-old Rylee Erisman from nearby Laker Swim. She instead opted to swim the 200 IM, the next race, which she won in 1:58.21. That’s about seven-tenths short of what she swam at Winter Juniors – East in December after a run of lifetime bests in the meet. She opened up most of her lead in the front-half of the race, though she gave some of that back on the breaststroke and freestyle legs to the likes of Dieffenthaller, who had the fastest split on both legs (35.71 and 27.23, respectively).
Erisman’s Laker Swim teammate Carolina Daher finished 2nd in 2:02.02.
Erisman and Daher bookended the winning Laker Swim 400 free relay to end the session. Erisman split 47.92. The middle legs of that relay were 15-year-old Elizabeth Johnson and 18-year old Madeleine Reynolds.
They beat out a St. Petersburg relay that won the 800 free relay earlier in the meet that included Dieffenthaller, a Brown commit who had a big session even without winning, Isabella Riva, and sisters Karrington and Brinkleigh Hansen.
Brinkleigh Hansen, the younger of the sisters at only 15, won the 500 free in 4:45.30 ahead of her teammate Riva (4:46.22). That adds to Hansen’s earlier dominant win in the 1000 free (9:43.00). Riva jumped Sarasota’s Clare Custer (4:49.22), who finished 2nd and 3rd. They placed in the opposite order in the 1000 free. That result for Riva knocked more than two seconds off her previous lifetime best.
As for the 50 free champion Zarczynski, she later won the 50 fly in 24.31, giving her three individual wins after topping the 100 fly on Friday.
On the boys’ side, 17-year-old Ethan Ekk continued to be the star of the meet. He won two races, the 100 back (47.13) and 500 free (4:13.55) on Saturday.
In the former event, he swam a best time by 1.3 seconds and beat out another of the meet’s best swimmers Antoine Destang from Bolles, who was 2nd in 47.71. Bolles took the 2-3-4-5 places in that race. That kind of depth is why the Bolles boys have more-than-doubled any other team’s points so far in this meet.
In the 500, Ekk dropped 1.65 seconds and now ties for 10th all-time in the 17-18 age group with Alec Enyeart, in spite of being on the younger half of that age group. This comes after moving to #3 all-time in the 1000 free on Thursday and he now has four individual wins in the meet.
His 16-year-old brother Owen Ekk finished 2nd in the 200 IM on Saturday in 1:46.79, behind only 27-year-old former Florida Gator Grant Sanders (1:46.21).
Other Day 3 Winners:
- After finishing 2nd in the 50 free, Maeve Eckerman won the 100 back in 54.25. That’s another lifetime best for the Georgia commit, clearing .05 seconds off her previous best from December 2022 – more than two years ago.
- Keith Simmons from the Palm Harbor YMCA won the boys’ 50 fly in 22.20.
- Laker Swim won the 400 free relay led by Rylee’s older brother Ryan Erisman, who split 43.81 on a rolling start. He combined with Tristan Bonnet-Eymard, Walter Zeman, and Mahmoud Morsy. The team finished in 2:59.71. Other fast splits included Nicholas Kwan, who split 43.41 on the 2nd leg of Bolles’ runner-up relay.
Scores After Day 3
Boys Top 5:
- Bolles – 822
- Laker Swim – 331.5
- ATAC – 250
- Fast Falcons – 230
- Planet Swim Aquatics – 206.5
Girls Top 5:
- Sarasota Sharks – 658
- Laker Swim – 531.5
- Saint Petersburg Aquatics – 425
- Planet Swim Aquatics – 389
- Bolles School Sharks – 295.5
Combined Top 5:
- Bolles School Sharks – 1,117.5
- Laker Swim – 863
- Sarasota Sharks – 788
- Planet Swim Aquatics – 595.5
- Saint Petersburg Aquatics – 528
I apologize if this is a very stupid question, but how is Ekk counted for USA age group things if he represents Canada internationally?
He is registered with a USA swimming club.
If you look at the All Time top 100 for all the different age groups you will see a lot of people that swam internationally for other countries, been like this since at least the 1970s.
This was where it was always going to get tricky. He is also receives AAP funding from sport Canada. Rightfully, so he met all the criteria and beyond! It’s the way this co system has worked for ages! If by chance he is on the list and does not accept the funding well that’s a family’s decision but he is like all others before him!
Several other swimmers in the past who are still on the Top 100 in different age group rankings also received funding from their national federations. Funding has never been a consideration, been primary if you represent a US club team / USA Swimming (USS) registration.