LC Kickoff is Green City

   1st Meet of the Long Course Season Off With a Bang!

5/5 - The 2025 Long Course season got off to a very fast start this weekend. Anybody following along on Meet Mobil was treated to a sea of green, indicating tons of dropped time! The meet this weekend at Ga Tech was rife with PR's and great races. And for most of the swimmers it's only been 2-3 weeks of training since they got back from short course season.   

In may heats swimmers might drop six or seven seconds and still move down!   Complete results can be viewed using the link below. 

Gwinnett Aquatics had a great meet with five swimmers winning events, another seven placing (top 3) and many swimmers already picking up state qualifying times. 

Kate Breiding, CJ Gast, Emily Hardy, Aliana McCann, Vincent Tuck, and Emery Wells all won events while Lucas Babcock, Reynolds Bowers, Ben and Jude El-Alam, Paige Johnson, Andrian Strokan, and Ella Wells all placed. 

22 swimmers picked up state cuts while a whopping 76 swimmers (nearly 75% of our swimmers) got at least a B time, many for the first time. Morgan Henry and Alex Matveev got their first A times, Aaron Vu got his first BB and Giselle Davis got her first B time. Brooks Pynn got his first ever State Qualifying time.

With it being the first long course meet since last July for most swimmers there were a ton of best times (over 30 swimmers had 100% best times!).  In fact over 20 swimmers had events that they dropped over 8s per 50 with top honors going to Sophia Holtzclaw who had a 31-second drop in 50 breast. 

Meanwhile we had a second group of swimmers at the TYR Pro meet in Fort Lauderdale. That meet was a Who's Who of swimming stars with much of the last Olympic team competing. Hannah-Claire Jowers, and Baylor and Collier Stanton attended and got to race alongside the likes of Katie Ledecky and Gretchen Walsh, who both broke world records at the meet. It was Ledecky's first record in seven years.

Despite some illness that kept him from competing on his best day, Baylor didn't do too shabby either, making the A final in the 200 IM racing Olympic champs Leon Marchand and US stars Shaine Casas and Carson Foster. He was the only swimmer in the heat under 20, finishing a respectable eighth.

Up next is the Summer Kickoff back at Tech May 17-18. Replies are closed so if you missed it be sure to email your coach. 

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Gwinnett Aquatics a Close Third at Divisionals

3/31 - Gwinnett Aquatics was third this weekend at the Northeast Divisional Champs at UGA, just missing out of 2nd as ASL passed us in the final session to take 2nd by a mere 200 points.  It was an unexpectedly close race for us as we were well outpaced by both ABSC, who won, and ASL last year.

The Senior and 9-10 age groups led the way taking 2nd (the 9-10 girls narrowly missed winning), while all other groups were third.  Individually, Riley Pynn and Baylor Stanton led the way with 6 event wins. Five other swimmers won events (for a total of 22 events!), and 154 more medaled (top-3).  But truly it was a total team effort as 76 different swimmers scored, 48 in the top 8!  

One of the more incredible races was the 500 Friday night where, in the same race, Collier Stanton picked up his first ever Summer Junior Nationals qualifying time and Tadd Duffield got his first ever Futures cut in the 200. Other highlights included Baylor Stanton's 4 team record swims and the 11-12 girls team of Jasmine Cu, CJ Gast, Aliana McCann and Victoria (Veronica) Tannure breaking the 200 free relay team record. But the most emotional moment of the meet for me was seeing Cameron Jones get up and race for first time this year after six months of rehabbing his knee injury last fall, and picking up a AAA time to boot.

Finally I have to shout out to our incredible parents. Your great spirit and team support were noticed by (and mentioned to me repeatedly) everyone: other coaches, officials, even pool staff. And it wasn't just the outfits and pots and pans. It was the way you support all the swimmers (not just your own) in such a positive way. Thanx to all the parents who helped organize the car decorations, shirts, theme-ware and the catered meals too. It really helped make this a special weekend for the swimmers.

Achievers and Standard breakers for the meet were:

• Event Winners - Pynn, Stanton, Kate Breiding, CJ Gast, Aliana McCann, Aaron Passman, and Collier Stanton
• Medalists - Duffield, Jones, Lucas Babcock, Reynolds Bowers, Jasmine Coe, Jude El-Alam, Gatlin Granbery, Emily Hardy, Paige Johnson, Brooks Pynn, Daniella Rose, Ainara Sanchez, and Ella and Emery Wells.
• First AAA Time - Cameron Jones
• First AA Times - Justin Bennett
• First A Times - El-Alam, Tannure, Jacob Matthew, James Sears
• First BB Times - William Buckley, Kaylin Lee
• First B Times - Talha Besic
• First Summer Juniors- Collier Stanton
• First Futures - Tadd Duffield
• First State Cuts - Bennett, Henry Boltin, Cameron Jones, and Jude Stanton

Now we get a few fun practices and a little rest until after spring break when we start up the long course season April 14. Our first long course meet is just four weeks from this Saturday!

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