It’s hard to believe that another new swim season has begun. GPAC team members opened the 2014-15 short course season with the second annual team photo day and time trials meet at the UWF Aquatic Center on August 23.

The morning began with over 130 new and returning swimmers lined up for a handful of new “goodies,” including the team shirt and cap. In addition to the team uniform, swimmers were treated to some cool GPAC shades and a ball cap, courtesy of the team support fund!

Senior team parent Mark Oberley volunteered to take the team picture this year, and with so many swimmers, it was hard to fit everyone in. Soon enough, the swimmers were assembled and they all had fun posing with their new duds on. Meanwhile, the parents got to meet Coach Phil and had members of the board present to talk about volunteering and ways to help.

The highlight of the day was the intrasquad team time trials. Each swimmer had a chance to swim a race of every stroke, including some individual medleys. A summer’s worth of hard work was apparent for the swimmers in the White, Blue and Green training groups, who accounted for many, many new best times and a slew of new time standards achieved. Congratulations to the following swimmers who posted best times in all of their individual events: Zach Arnold, 11, Paul Ashton, 15, Alex Birthright, 9, Grace Bradshaw, 9, Amy Brown, 14, Jacob Chambers, 15, Connor Devanney, 9, Justin Durham, 11, Nathan Durham, 9, Landry Hadder, 10, Claire Han, 9, Kendall Hjelle, 9, Amelia Hoitt, 9, Emi Huang, 8, Sam Laggan, 11, Meg Langhorne, 13, Sydney London, 10, Sarah Marks, 10, Grace McNally, 10, William Ngo, 10, Manas Pandey, 12, Roman Popovich, 7, Kat Ralls, 9, Adriana Rivera, 10, Alex Smith, 14, and Liam Winans, 12.

Congratulations to these swimmers who achieved new motivational time standards:

B:            Lauren Baradon, Braden Barkley, Kareem Bataineh, Connor Devanney, Landry Hadder, Zoe Hall, Claire Han, Amelia Hoitt, Cannon Hutchen, John Hwang, Cole Kariher, Sam Laggan, Austin Lee, Justin Liu, Sarah Marks, Geza Maruschak, Grace McNally, Korbin Menser, Manas Pandey, Kat Ralls, Joseph Richbourg, Adrianna Rivera, Alex Smith, Shelby Smith, Bryceon Snowman, Hope Waggoner

BB:         Amy Brown, Trinity Devanney, Cason Forst, Landry Hadder, Zoe Hall, Claire Han, Amelia Hoitt, Sara Lypko, Sarah Marks, Aiden Morgan, Manas Pandey, Walker Parra, Caroline Sears, Liam Winans

A:            Heidi Schellen

It was great to see all the returning swimmers, as well as so many new faces at the team day! Thanks to all the officials, timers and meet operators-in-training for helping us run a great first meet for the swimmers!