Quick Poll

Do you personally know anyone who is homeless in Coweta County?

Related Story

Blogs

Angela McRae

Tea with friends

Lorrie Lynch

Who's News

Published Thursday, November 20, 2008 in Sports

Addition of Newnan increases pool of talent

By Chris Goltermann

The Times-Herald

To say the level of activity among local pools is progressing might be an understatement when it comes to Coweta County high school swimming.

Pardon the pun, things are going quite swimmingly in fact.

Enough that on Wednesday, the county's three public high school teams congregated at the Summit YMCA pool for a last-minute mock meet that turned into an early opportunity to qualify for February's GHSA state meet. Considering that at this time last year, a meet with all three schools wouldn't have been possible, is a huge step in the growth of the sport locally.

Fresh off a summer that featured Michael Phelps' Olympic-record setting eight gold medals, Newnan HIgh is fielding a swim team for the 2008-09 season, joining East Coweta, Northgate and Heritage in the 'starting blocks.'

Over 20 athletes tried out for Newnan after high school media specialist Courtney Stillwell offered to coach the team.

"I hadn't swum competitively since high school, but I kept up with swimming through my children, Casey and Shelby, who swam with the Summit's YMCA team," said Stillwell. "I felt like someone needed to fill this position and decided to do it. Both Northgate and East Coweta have had swim teams for several years, so why shouldn't Newnan?"

Newnan, East Coweta and Northgate have all competed in two meets since the season began last week. Newnan and East Coweta competed in the Whitewater Invitational last Saturday, while Northgate won a meet hosted by Troup County that included a traditional power in Columbus.

"We beat Columbus and I don't remember that that's happened before, so I thought we did pretty well for a starting meet," said Northgate coach Daniel Barrett. "We lost a lot of seniors from last year and some good senior leadership."

Three of last year's state qualifying swimmers -- Casey DeRidder, Andrea Decker and Kristie Freund have gone on to swim in college -- with DeRidder making the traveling squad as a freshman at Western Kentucky.

DeRidder's younger sister, Bailey, who competed individually at the Class AAAA state meet last February, is back, as well as Katie Mason, Haley Dent and Erika Pauly. Barrett has also been encouraged by Freund's younger sister, Kayla, a freshman who should make an immediate impact as will Angela Edmonds.

Northgate's boys, several of which barely missed state qualifying times, benefit from the returns of swimmers Sam Shimabe, brothers Brad and Drew Sweeney, and Michael Cavanah, who is coming off of the cross-country season. Freshman Nick Pauly is among the newcomers.

In addition, sophomore Lainie Long hopes to become the first local to compete in the GHSA State Diving Championship after just missing out on qualifying as a freshman. Qualifying meets will be hard to come by, however. Both Woodward Academy and Westminster are having diving wells redone. Westminster will still host the state swimming championships, but Marist will host the diving championships.

"It looks like (Athens) or the Metro Championships might be her only chances (to qualify)," said Barrett. "Woodward not having a pool this year kinda hurts us."

Up next for all three teams is the Carrollton Invitational on Dec. 6.

East Coweta's boys have already penciled in state qualifying marks after just two meets. A foursome ofJamie Wright, Jake O'Brien, Weston Dean and Connor Ford qualified in both the 400 freestyle and the 200 medley relays. Individually, O'Brien qualified in the 100 breaststroke and Wright in the 200 individual medley.

"We've got a lot of new swimmers and the times are already coming down," said East Coweta coach Darrell Hynson. "The majority of our girls are new swimmers."

The Lady Indians' top returner, Myranda Kralman has been slowed while coming off knee surgery. She hopes to be back by the time East Coweta hosts a Jan. 30 meet at the Summit YMCA, which is already at its capacity of teams.

"We had to close it up because there were so many teams that wanted to get in," said Hynson, who competed in last month's Ironman World Championships in Kona, Hawaii.

Having all four county high schools involved in swimming may only increase the level of competition locally. Wednesday's meet originated as a mock practice, but with all three local public schools together for the first time, it only seemed logical to make it a full meet.

Newnan's first meet of the season, the Whitewater Invitational held at Clayton County's Lundquist Aquatic Center, featured over 1,000 swimmers, with Joe Crain leading the way with a ninth-place finish in the 100-yard butterfly with a time of 1 minute, 5.34 seconds. Crain also joined a pair of relay efforts that both finished in the top 15.

Crain, Zack Ponce, Wes Harwick and Cole Cash were eighth in the freestyle relay at 1:44.38 and 11th in the medley event at 2:00.44. Individually, Ponce was 14th in the 100 breaststroke at 1:16.55.

Kelsie Howerton added a 35th finish in the 100 freestyle at 1:09.53.

Comment On This Story

Times-Herald.com does not necessarily agree with the comments posted below. Responsibility of comments rests solely with the writer.

Submission of a comment does not guarantee publication. Comments will be posted by a moderator after being scanned for abusive language, relevance, etc. See our Comments FAQ for more details.