Finisher Quotes

(on fellow "flapper" actress Clara Bow) I liked Clara. A very warm, sweet, generous girl. What great potential! But she wasn`t a finisher. Her mind was like a sponge, but she didn`t have the concentration or ability to see it through. She was quite ingenuous. People would go into shock over her salty language.

Probably the biggest thing to look at is that our returnees made such a significant improvement. We competed without Neoma Palmer, who was actually our No. 1 (finisher) a year ago.

Early in the semifinal round, we lost a little bit of wind. When (eventual runner-up Shawn Beard of West pinned eventual third-place finisher) Kenny Palmer in a semifinal, that took a little wind out of our sails, but we still came back to put 13 guys in the final round. I told the guys they had to be aggressive (going into the final round), and I think we might have been a little too aggressive a couple times.

We practice the timing every Tuesday morning, coming in and getting out fast but not getting disqualified. A lot of the responsibility is on the finisher. If you take an extra stroke, that`ll mess up the person starting. It takes a lot of practice and timing.