In their second meet in as many weeks, GPAC swimmers opened the long course season at home at UWF with tremendous participation, numerous best times and five high-point winners.

Although not heavily attended by other teams, GPAC swimmers set a new home meet participation record by having 107 swimmers compete in the meet. This number beats all other GPAC home meets since September, with the previous mark set at the District Championships in February at 103 swimmers.

“The coaches are all excited by the number of swimmers at all levels who want to compete in a swim meet,” said Head Age Group Coach Greg Johnson. “We had almost 70% of our team at this meet, which impressive by itself; and to have that many for a long course meet is exceptional.”

GPAC had five high-point winners, out of eight groups, at the meet. Most of them had to race their GPAC teammates to win the title, and the standings were a 1-2-3 of GPAC swimmers. A tight race in the girls’ 10 & under division separated the top two finishers by a mere six points, and Maren Mackey, 10, edged Paige Bridges, 10, for the high-point award. Malia Ludwick, 9, was close behind in third place in the standings. Mackey won five out of her 10 events, set four new Southeastern cuts, and gained three new ‘AA’ times (50, 100 fly, 200 IM).

Makayla Ludwick and Walker Parra, both 12, swept the high-point awards for the second consecutive meet. Both were high-point winners in Mobile a week earlier. Ludwick won five individual events and set a new SES cut in the 100m breaststroke. Parra nearly set a new team record in the 200m backstroke, missing the mark by less than a second. He also won six individual events. Seth Scoggins, 12, was the runner-up for the boys’ 11-12 age group, just 1.5 points back from Walker. William Henderson, 11, was third in the standings.

Gracie Matthews, 13, won her first high-point award since aging up in March. Matthews won four individual events and set 5 new life-best times in her events. Brooke Ferrara, 16, won seven of her 10 individual events, sweeping both the 1500m and 800m freestyle events, as well as the 50 and 100m butterfly.

“It’s quite impressive to see the swimmers improve so much, especially since this is the first long course meet for a majority of the swimmers,” said GPAC Head Coach Phil Kraus.

Similar to the last meet in Mobile, a slew of new Southeastern championship qualifying times dotted the results. This time, 20 swimmers accounted for 39 new SES cuts: Alex Atherton, 11 (50, 100 Fly), Coulson Barfield, 14 (200 Br, 400 IM, 400 Fr), Braden Barkley, 11 (200 IM), Jacob Bell, 11 (50 Br), Parker Brandt, 13 (100 Bk), Cason Forst, 12 (200 IM, 400 Fr), James Henderson, 13 (200 Fr), Renee Henderson, 11 (50 Bk, 400 Fr), Kyle Longley, 10 (100 Fr, 100 Fly), AJ Luth, 14 (200 Fly), Noah Scoggins, 10 (50 Br), James Tracey, 12 (100 Fr), and Cali Wilson, 12 (50, 100, 200 Fr, 50, 100 Fly, 50, 100 Bk, 200 IM). Special congratulations to the following swimmers who posted their first-ever SES qualifying time(s): Landry Hadder, 9 (50, 100 Fly), Austin Lee, 14 (200 Br), Sara Lypko, 9 (50, 100 Br), Nevada Wood, 13 (200 Br), and Jackson Wright, 10 (50, 100 BK).

Thirty-five GPAC swimmers posted life-best times in all events swam: Alex Atherton, Jordan Barrett, 12, Kareem Bataineh, 14, Amy Brown, 14, Mattie Cochran, 9, Landry Hadder, Claire Han, 9, Isabel Harris, 11, Josephine Harris, 7, James Henderson, Cannon Hutchens, 12, Elena Hynes, 9, Erin Johnson, 12, Austin Lee, Alex Little, 12, Max Little, 7, Rebekah Loesch, 17, Kyle Longley, 10, Sara Lypko, 9, Belle McNally, 7, Grace McNally, 9, Devon Mead, 14, Roman Popovich, 7, Joseph Richbourg, 10, Adrianna Rivera, 10, Matthew Rodgerson, 12, Seth Scoggins, 12, Alex Smith, 14, Shelby Smith, 8, Laila Sweatman, 14, Grayson Walter, 15, Joseph Webb, 11, Cali Wilson, Nevada Wood, and Jackson Wright.

Three GPAC swimmers dropped an extraordinary amount of time at this meet. While it is not extraordinary to drop time at the first long course meet since the previous summer, Adriana Rivera, Jordan Barrett and Cannon Hutchens dropped minutes off their best times. Rivera dropped 115.1 seconds, Barrett dropped 123.4 seconds and Cannon dropped 164.3 seconds off their best times!

GPAC boasted 28 different individual event winners: Coulson Barfield, Braden Barkley, Parker Brandt, Paige Bridges, Amy Brown, Lexi DeJesus, Brooke Ferrara, Cason Forst, James Henderson, Renee Henderson, William Henderson, Austin Lee, Kyle Longley, Makayla Ludwick, AJ Luth, Jenna Luth, Maren Mackey, Gracie Matthews, Tatiana Oberley, Caroline Page, Walker Parra, Nicholas Petruska, Noah Scoggins, Seth Scoggins, Grace Sill, James Tracey, Cali Wilson, and Thomas Young.

GPAC has a break in competition until June 6-8, when they will host the big Tom Lalor Invitational at UWF.