Stanton Wins High Point at Jrs, GaGa Makes if Six in a Row @ Lanier Winter Invite!

  Stanton, Jowers break more team records, Stanton gets first 17-18 State Record

12/16 - It was a very busy, very successful weekend for Gwinnett Aquatics. First, we had three swimmers (2 more than last year!) at Junior Nationals in Greensboro, NC where all three did well and Baylor Stanton won the High Point Award! And second we had over 80 swimmers at the Lanier Winter Invite where GaGa was able to win the meet for the sixth year in a row. 

At juniors Baylor made A-finals in five events, winning three and placing top 5 in two others.  Collier Stanton and Hannah-Claire Jowers made their debuts at Juniors with five new best times.  

Baylor and Hannah-Claire also picked up some new Team Records and Baylor broke his first 17-18 Georgia State record (400 IM) His time in the 400 IM was also the fastest 18U time in the nation this season.

Meanwhile in Gainesville Gwinnett Aquatics won the Lanier Winter Invite this weekend, defending its title for the sixth straight year.   With our Senior group not participating it was up to our Senior 2 and 3 and the age group swimmers to carry the scoring; which they did.  GaGa had more swimmers score and make top 10 than ever before and a whopping seventeen swimmers combined to win over 30 events, our most ever.  

In addition twelve swimmers picked up new time standards, four got some new state cuts and quite a few more got new Peach State cuts.

Event Winners: Justin Bennett, Reynolds Bowers, Ben El-Alam, Bri Exil, CJ Gast, Kendall Granberry, Emily Hillensheim, Jaidyn Joiner, Aliana McCann, Lily Nejman, Aaron Passman, Riley Pynn, Lillie Robinson, Addi Shaffer, Vincent Tuck, and Ella and Emery Wells.
Standard Breakers: A - Kat Jacobsen; BB - Nyziah Barnaby, Anna Buckley, Ben El-Alam, Arina Kovalenkov, Grant McGee, Valarie Monroe; B - John Matthews, JJ Sanchez, Aaron Vu, Kevin Yang, and Jimmy Zhang.
New State Qualifiers: El-Alam, Exil, Monroe, and Shaffer.

This meet was also the last chance to qualify for the first meet of 2025, the Eastern Classic meet January 17-19.  While some of our top Senior swimmers will be at a meet in Charlotte, another select group will attend this meet at Dynamo. You can see those who qualified with the link below.  All other swimmers should attend the Saturday Fun Meet at our pool the following weekend. 

Now we have one of the most beneficial training times for swimmers all over the country, Christmas training!  All swimmers should look to increase their number of practices during this break from school.  Swimmers whose families are traveling should make arrangements to train where they are going. Here's the Holiday Practice Schedule. 

---

Gwinnett Aquatics Tenth at Senior State Champs

  Stanton, Jowers break 3 team records

12/9 - Gwinnett  Aquatics finished tenth at the Georgia Senior State Champs at Ga Tech this weekend.  It was a strange meet in that our two top swimmers, Baylor and Hannah-Claire swam a limited program as they prepare for Juniors this week. In fact on the one day we were full strength, Friday, we had three event wins and a third!

On the plus side we had a lot of new swimmers step up with their first ever second swims at state or big relay swims. Nine swimmers scored. Baylor Stanton won two events, Hannah-Claire one and Collier Stanton one.  In addition Nate Beeney had a top ten finish while Kate Breiding, Sarah Heppe, Paige Johnson, Brandon Noble and Cole Wright also scored. 

Baylor and Hannah-Claire combined to break three team records Collier Stanton picked up his first ever Junior National cut in the last event of the weekend, the 1000 free, while Tadd Duffield got his first sectional cuts.

AAAA: Hannah-Claire Jowers, Collier Stanton
AAA: Paige Johnson, Brandon Noble
AA: Tadd Duffield, Sarah Heppe, Jimmy Wang, Cole Wright
A: Justin Bennett, SteveMichael Bennett, Justice Parker
Junior National Qualifier: Jowers, Stanton
Futures Qualifiers: Stanton
Sectional Qualifiers: Duffield

Up next is Junior Nationals for Baylor, Collier and Hannah-Claire (starting Thursday) and the Lanier Winter Invite that will wrap up this first half of the season this weekend December 13-15 and kick off our Holiday Practice Schedule. 

---

Fast Swimming at Woodie B Invite

11/26 - We had a very exciting weekend at the Woodie B Malone Invite this weekend at Dynamo.  With over 100 athletes competing there was tons of fast swimming and lots of new time standards achievers and championship meet qualifiers. In fact we had over 5 pages of new time standard breaks with 17 of them being new achievers.

We also had 46 swimmers with top-10 finishes. Riley Pynn led the way winning five events. Kate Brieding, Emily Hardy, Aliana McCann, Aaron Passman, and Baylor Stanton all won events.  Baylor broke the team record in the 100 breast of all things.  An additional nine swimmers medaled (top 3).  They were: Jasmine Coe, CJ Gast, Frances Heys, Lily Nejman, Brooks Pynn, Collier Stanton, Vincent Tuck, Emery Wells, and Cole Wright (Sr). Time standard breakers and new State and Sectional qualifiers were:

AAA (All-Star): Nate Beeney, Breiding, Hardy
AA: Coe, Paige Johnson, Cate Joyce, Brandon Noble, Lillie Robinson
A: Brianna Exil
BB: Lucas Babcock, Aeden Hills, Morgan Sevier, Andrian Strokan
B:  Timi Ajigbolamu, Sophia Holtzclaw, Brooks Pynn, Eva Saldana
Sectional Qualifiers:  Beeney, Noble
State Qualifiers: Robinson

Up next is the Senior State Champs in two weeks at UGA followed by the Lanier Winter Invite that will wrap up this first half of the season on December 13-15. 

---

More...