Huntsville, AL- Bolstered by an individual event champion, team-record setting performances, and impressive depth across events, Greater Pensacola Aquatic Club (GPAC) surged up five spots in the team standings from 2025 to place 11^th at the 2026 Southeastern Swimming summer championships in Huntsville July 17-19.

               “It was proven over and over again that being invested in your teammates’ success by cheering for them and supporting them makes it more fun, and more fun makes faster swimming,” said GPAC head coach Greg Johnson. “This was an impressively spirited team that we took to Huntsville—from our youngest teammates to our older ones. It was their teamwork that made it happen.”

               Addison Adams, 12, kicked things off by winning a pair of individual titles the very first night of finals. Adams’s first title was in the 11-12 girls’ 200-meter freestyle, where she won by nearly two seconds in a new ‘AAAA’ time. Adams then turned around 20 minutes later and won the 11-12 girls’ 200-meter backstroke—the first-ever competition of this event for this age group at the championships.

               Adams went on to win two silver medals in the 100 and 200m butterfly and a bronze medal in the 100m freestyle. Adams was the highest point scorer for the team, and set all personal best times in her six individual events.

               The team’s next highest points totals came from a pair of boys—12-year-old Ethan Anderson, and Justin Washburn.

               Anderson contributed 47 points to the team total with his bronze medal performance in the 11-12 boys’ 50-meter freestyle, erasing the 13-year-old team record with a :27.89 second race. He nabbed a fourth place finish in the 50m butterfly, and swam all life-best times in his six events.

               Justin Washburn, 14, was a five-time championship finalist and scored 81 points for GPAC. Justin won the silver medal in the 1500m freestyle—his last event of the competition, of which he raced over 4000 meters throughout the weekend in his entered event program. Justin lowered the 10-year-old GPAC team record in the mile by more than 14 seconds with his performance. He then went on to finish sixth in the 100m butterfly a couple hours later.

               Along with Justin, GPAC had five other distance swimmers entered in the mile—three 13-14 boys and one 15&O girl and one 15&O boy—AJ Gillespie, 13, Nicholas Lypko, 14, Lane Robinson, 14, Grace Walen, 15, and Jack Hebert, 20. All six swimmers scored for the team, and all swam personal best times.

               Jack Hebert, a former GPAC swimmer and current rising Junior at Carson-Newman Univeristy, returned home this summer to train with the team. Jack picked up 37 points for GPAC with championship final appearances in the 400m individual medley and the 200m breaststroke as well as a 10^th place finish in the 1500m free.

               Amelia Ilnitskiy, 16, scored a pair of championship final appearances in the 200 and 400m individual medley, where she dropped 18 seconds in her 400 IM and a new best time in both.

               Several of GPAC’s 13-14-year-old team scored points in their swims. Along with the three distance swims, Marcela Dos Santos, 14, put up 34 points—including a silver medal in the 200m butterfly, and a fifth-place finish in the 100m fly. Marcela was also selected to the Southeastern Swimming Age Group Zone team that competed the week after this meet.

Arthur Phillips, 14, quietly put up 37 points, including a pair of fifth-place finishes in the 100 and 200-meter breaststroke, and a consolation final win in the 200 IM. Arthur swam all best times in his six events.

               Addison LaRue, 14, not only made her first-ever Southeastern championship qualifying time, she coupled that with her first-ever consolation final in the 200m butterfly, finishing 14^th.

               Ava Walker, 12, came through with 31 points for the team with championship final swims in the 100 and 200m breaststroke, where she finished seventh in both. She also had a consolation final appearance in the 50m breaststroke, placing 10^th.

               For the younger GPAC squad, the Purdy twins— Lincoln and Vale, 10 —combined for 58 points. Lincoln scored a fifth-place finish in his 50m backstroke and a sixth-place finish in the 100m backstroke. Vale dropped nearly 12 seconds in her 200m freestyle to jump up to an eighth-place finish. She had three other top-15 swims (50/100 back, 100 fly).

               GPAC’s 10&U boys were also the team’s most competitive relays at the meet. The boys’ 200m freestyle relay of Purdy, Jacob Fisher, 9, Brady Nguyen, 10 and Noah Odom, 9, placed sixth, and same boys’ 200m medley relay placed eighth.

               “The team swam nearly 70% life-best times,” said Head Age Group coach Scott Griffith. “To perform that well at such a high-level meet is really a testament to how well they prepared and how hard they worked all summer.”

               Swimmers that posted all life-best times in their individual events were Addison Adams, Ethan Anderson, AJ Gillespie, Arthur Phillips, Galen Schwartz, 12, Ben Stewart, 16, Grace Walen and Ava Walker.

               Last year at the meet, GPAC’s 21-swimmer squad pulled out a 16^th place finish, and this year, with 31 athletes entered, the team finished 11^th in a meet of over 35 teams and over 1,000 swimmers.