Thomas County Central High School Swim team is wrapping up its season with several accomplishments in its wake.

The 2015-2016 team has two new coaches. Returning Coach Todd Wilson and newbie Gary Smith are the varsity coaches, and Jennifer Lane is the new community coach.

“This is Coach Smith’s first year teaching and coaching,” Coach Wilson said. “Being right out of college I think he served as a role model for all of our swimmers.”

The team consisted of eight boys, 17 girls.

“My favorite part about swim this year has been growing closer to my teammates, and getting better at the stroke that I love,” member Taylor McDonald said.

Wilson said he had several goals this season.

“My goals this season were: to help new swimmers learn proper stroke techniques and turns as quickly as possible, have each swimmer drop time in their event during sanctioned meets, and have as many swimmers as possible qualify for state,” he said.

The season, so far, has consisted of seven meets in which four of them were in Thomasville.

“For most of the local meets the girls finished first or second, while the boys finished third or fourth,” Wilson said. “During some of the larger meets the highest finish for the girls this season was fifth.”

Central hosted the region swim meet on Tuesday, Jan. 25. The girls came in second and qualified in the 200 Yard Freestyle Relay. The relay is made up of four girls that each swim a 50 yard freestyle.

“I never had a doubt in my mind that we couldn’t make it to state for the second year in a row,” member Kendall Salter said of the event.

Relay team members are Avery Barrett, Savannah Barrett, Emily Greek, and Salter.

“I’m very pleased on how our team performed at the region meet, even though they fell a little short of winning the championship this year,” Wilson said. “I couldn’t ask for a better group of swimmers. They worked very hard all season long. All of our swimmers dropped time throughout the season and many earned their best times ever in their event.” 

The TCCHS team includes many younger swimmers in comparison to other area schools, Wilson explained, and, due to this, many swimmers competed in events they did not have much experience swimming.

“I was very proud to see our swimmers not complain about their region events and put the team’s needs ahead of their own personal region goals,” he said.

The Georgia High School Association Swimming & Diving State Championship will be on Feb. 5-7 at the Georgia Tech Aquatic Center in Atlanta.