The FISH

The FISH Pursuing excellence since 1991. The FISH swim team is a USA Swimming Club, founded by Executive Director Ray Benecki.

Coach Ray started the team with a small, dedicated group of swimmers in 1991at Spring Hill RECenter in McLean, VA. Spring Hill has been the home of the FISH team ever since. In 2009, the team added a second site - Audrey Moore at Wakefield Park - to its program. Since then, the team has grown to over 300 members. Most families live in the greater Washington, DC Metropolitan area. In 2009 the team

received the highest honor of Gold Medal Club status awarded by USA Swimming, a status reserved to only very few clubs in the country.

-The FISH Mission-

The team's mission is to encourage the pursuit of excellence, while nurturing a love for the sport of swimming, and developing the values and skills for success in life along the way.

Well that’s a wrap on Day 5 and our time here in Irvine for Summer Junior Nationals. We ended our meet with some distanc...
08/08/2026

Well that’s a wrap on Day 5 and our time here in Irvine for Summer Junior Nationals. We ended our meet with some distance - Lila in the Women’s 1500 and Henry in the Men’s 800. In two exciting back to back heats, Lila started things off with a 23 second drop in her mile, earning her another Senior National qualifying time and a 12th place finish overall! Henry had a great swim, finishing only 1.5 seconds off his best time that he set at Futures just last Saturday, and moving himself up to 37th!

Overall a great experience for Lila, Henry and Luca, competing at the fastest 18&U meet in the country and maintaining their physical and mental strength through 5 days of competition. This is a hard meet to be successful at - and all three of them smashed it! With long course season coming to a close, we are looking forward to Winter Juniors in December and what more is in store for all of our FISH athletes in the short course season!

On today’s episode of: What We Did In Irvine…we played “Where’s Lila?” in the main pool warm up, Luca finished his meet ...
08/07/2026

On today’s episode of: What We Did In Irvine…we played “Where’s Lila?” in the main pool warm up, Luca finished his meet with the 100 Back, and we cheered on Lila’s second finals appearance of the meet!

Our morning started with the Women’s 200 Free where Lila’s prelims swim earned her a spot in the C Final this evening. Luca then hit the water with his last race of the weekend in the Men’s 100 Back. He had a great swim and placed second in his heat, finishing under the 59 second mark for the third time this week! We returned to the pool for finals where we watched Lila kick some C-Final butts, dropping almost a second from her morning swim (two tenths of a second off her lifetime best) and moving herself up to a 20th place finish.

Tomorrow will be our final races of the weekend with Lila and Henry racing in back to back heats of the distance session! Looking forward to a for sure!

Day 3 check-in from Irvine coming to you AFTER finals! Another great day in Cali for the FISH. We started the morning wi...
08/06/2026

Day 3 check-in from Irvine coming to you AFTER finals! Another great day in Cali for the FISH. We started the morning with the Men’s 200 Back where Luca popped another best time - a 2:06.41, bettering his time from just last week! We shifted things over to the 400 Free with Lila and Henry racing in the A-Flights (top 5 heats for women and men). Lila’s morning swim earned her a solid spot in the B-Final, a two level improvement from her finals appearance last year at this meet. Henry went his second-fastest time ever, and moved himself up in his heat from the outside lane!

Tonight at Finals, Lila raced hard to an 11th place finish and a new best time of 4:18.42!! An over-a-second improvement from her time drop at PVS Open Champs.

The fun continues tomorrow with Lila racing the 200 Free and Luca racing his last swim with the 100 back. Henry gets a day off, but will be back to work on Friday!

Day 2 check-in from Irvine and we had all 3 FISH in the water this morning! Lila started the morning with a 100 Freestyl...
08/04/2026

Day 2 check-in from Irvine and we had all 3 FISH in the water this morning! Lila started the morning with a 100 Freestyle, stopping the clock in a new best time of 58.31 and moving herself up around 30 spots! Henry had his first swim of the meet in the 400 IM. A very strong swim, but just off his best time. The Drop Of The Day went to Luca Sanchez who dropped an impressive 11 seconds in his 400 IM for a 4:39.42! Looking forward to some more racing tomorrow, with Luca in the 200 Back and Lila and Henry in the 400 Free!

The gang’s all here! Henry arrived this afternoon and had a little swim out with Luca before cheering on Lila in her 800...
08/03/2026

The gang’s all here! Henry arrived this afternoon and had a little swim out with Luca before cheering on Lila in her 800!

This morning, Luca had a solid 50 Backstroke, just off his best but moving himself up in the standings! This afternoon, Lila rocked her 800 Free with a 4.5 second drop and smashing through the 9:00 barrier! Her new best of 8:56.01 earns her another Senior Nationals AND US Open qualifying time! Congratulations to Luca and Lila on their awesome day 1!

Tomorrow, Lila will open the morning with the 100 Freestyle and Henry and Luca will each race the 400 IM. Drop some good luck in the comments!

2/3 ain’t bad! Our National team is loading with Luca arriving on deck this morning! He kicks off with the 50 Backstroke...
08/03/2026

2/3 ain’t bad! Our National team is loading with Luca arriving on deck this morning! He kicks off with the 50 Backstroke around 10:25am PT and Lila will race the 800 Free in the distance session around 2:30pm PT. You can tune in and watch them swim on the USA Swimming YouTube page or follow the link on USAswimming.org!

Lila has arrived “at the big pool”! Having a little swim out this evening before her 800 Free tomorrow!
08/03/2026

Lila has arrived “at the big pool”! Having a little swim out this evening before her 800 Free tomorrow!

It’s time! Our National Team is on their way for our final post-meet of the season, Summer Junior Nationals in Irvine. W...
08/02/2026

It’s time! Our National Team is on their way for our final post-meet of the season, Summer Junior Nationals in Irvine. Wishing Lila, Luca and Henry the best of luck as they compete against the top 18&Us from across the country!

Signing off from Greensboro with another incredible day of swimming! Luca kicked off the morning with another new Summer...
08/02/2026

Signing off from Greensboro with another incredible day of swimming! Luca kicked off the morning with another new Summer Juniors cut in his 200 Back, earning himself a spot in the A Final and finishing 8th overall. Sarp and Henry both had great races in the 800 Free, with Sarp moving up to 25th and Henry taking 6th place overall. Henry’s time of 8:25.83 was a best time by 6.7 seconds, below the Winter Juniors qualifying standard AND a new team record! The previous record of 8:28.42 was held by Alex Anderson and had been standing since 2004!

Speaking of records - Henry’s 400 Freestyle last night was ALSO a new team record. His time of 4:01.78 bested the previous record of 4:06.50 held by Michael Flach since 2008!!

What an awesome weekend for our four Futures athletes! Congratulations to Emma, Sarp, Luca and Henry - you all made us so proud!!

Another exciting night in Greensboro! After four solid swims this morning (Luca in 50 Back, and Emma, Sarp and Henry in ...
08/01/2026

Another exciting night in Greensboro! After four solid swims this morning (Luca in 50 Back, and Emma, Sarp and Henry in the 400 Free), Luca and Henry headed back to finals in their respective events. Luca kicked things off with a best time in his 50 Back, a drop from the new best he had set at prelims, and finishing 10th overall! In his preliminary swim, Henry had dropped 4 seconds to earn himself a middle lane in the A Final. With another 2.2 second drop at night, he not only placed 3rd overall, but achieved his first Summer Junior Nationals qualifying time! We will now have THREE FISH swimmers in Irvine next week - an exciting update to our roster!

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McLean, VA
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