Long-time Dalton swim coach Charles Todd announced his
resignation earlier in the week to take another job down near Atlanta and his Dolphins want to
make sure he goes out with a bang.
Those Dalton Dolphins, who dominated the Blue Division in
the Chattanooga Area Swim League this summer, hold a 55-point lead over Signal
Mountain following the first day of action in the annual Bill Caulkins City
Meet, which is being held at Warner Park.
The Dolphins totaled 1.152.5 points while the Green Giants
aren’t far behind with 1,097.5. The
Ooltewah Tidal Waves are third in the 15-team field with 877 while Stuart
Heights and Fairyland round out the top five teams with 687 and 519 points,
respectively.
Todd has been the director of the Carpet Capital Aquatic
Club for the past 16 years, but he’ll be headed South on Monday when he takes
over as the director for the Chattahoochee Gold Swim Club. He just hopes he can go out on top after many
years of success as the Dalton leader.
“I’m pretty sure we’re up right now, but I’d love to get
thrown in just one more time,” he said after the final session on Friday
evening had ended.
“We won most of the boys events today and I’m really pleased about that, but I’m
hoping that we’ll be even stronger tomorrow.
It’s always tight with Signal Mountain, but it looks like it’s going to
be a two-pony show on Saturday. We just
have to carry over the success we had today,” he added.
Jason Meszaros, who has been Todd’s assistant for the past
seven years, has been named as the interim coach for the Dolphins. He too was happy with the way his team
performed on a hot first day.
“All of these kids really love coach Todd and they want to
send him out with a big win. We wanted
to get a big jump today, but we always do better on the second day as those are
our stronger events. But we did about
all we could possibly do to get us headed in the right direction,” Meszaros
added.
Signal Mountain coach Stephanie Cohen saw a lot of bright
spots, but she also saw several incidents where her team could have done
better.
“We’re doing okay, but we could have done better with some
of our younger kids. We had a couple of
pretty good kids get disqualified earlier in the day and that always hurts, but
tomorrow is a new day. But overall, we
had some pretty good swims today,” she nodded with a smile.
There were nine individuals who won two events on Friday,
but none were any more impressive than Signal Mountain’s Susannah LaRochelle,
who won the 50 Breast and the 100 Individual Medley and both in record-breaking times.
Her time of 29.74 seconds was the best in the 50 breast
while she actually broke the 100 IM record twice, erasing the old mark of
1:01.20 in the preliminary round with a time of 59.56 seconds and then breaking
it again by a full second in the finals.
Teammate Jewel Gordon broke the record in the 50 breast for
11-12 girls with a time of 32.04 seconds while the Green Giants also rewrote
the 15-18 200 Medley Relay record with a 1:50.71.
The other two records broken by the girls came in the 9-10
age group where Ooltewah had a time of 2:20.12 in winning the 200 medley
relay. Fairyland’s Ellie Taliaferro
broke the 100 IM mark with a time of 1:09.40.
There were only two records broken by the boys and both came
in the 200 medley relay and both by Dalton.
The first came in the 13-14 race with a time of 1:48.38 while the second
came from those 15-18 young men with a time of 1:37.90.
Other double winners in addition to Taliaferro and
LaRochelle included MaeMae Powe of Big Ridge, Cleveland’s Grayson Payne, Stuart
Heights’ Gwennie Davis, Fairyland’s Ben Bevill, Signal Mountain’s Sam McHugh
and Dalton teammates Will Haley and Emilio Valdez.
THE MEET CONCLUDES with more finals on Saturday night,
including butterfly, freestyle and backstroke among the individual events and
the ever-exciting freestyle relays.
TEAM STANDINGS FOLLOWING FRIDAY FINALS: 1.
Dalton 1152.5; 2. Signal Mountain 1097.5;
3. Ooltewah 877; 4. Stuart Heights 687; 5. Fairyland 519; 6. Ringgold 339.5; 7.
Cleveland 273; 8. Country Club 241.5; 9. Big Ridge 238; 10. Waterdogs 189; 11.
Fort Oglethorpe 151; 12. Red Bank 132; 13. Cumberland 59; 14. Calhoun 57; 15.
Ridgeside 50.
INDIVIDUAL EVENT WINNERS FROM FRIDAY
8 & UNDER GIRLS
50 Free: 1. Mae Mae Powe (Big Ridge) 35.85
100 Medley Relay – 1. Stuart Heights 1:25.35
25 Breast – 1. Julia Quernemoen (Big Ridge) 22.36
100 INDIVIDUAL MEDLEY – 1. Mae Mae Powe (Big Ridge)
1:32.18
8 & UNDER BOYS
50 Free – 1. Ben Bevill (Fairyland) 35.59
100 Medley Relay – 1. Dalton 1:22.66
25 Breast – Cole Withrow (Dalton) 20.35
100 Individual Medley – 1. Ben Bevill (Fairyland) 1:31.14
9-10 GIRLS
100 Free – 1. Ellie Taliaferro (Fairyland) 1:02.58
200 Medley Relay – Ooltewah 2:20.12 (breaks old record of
2:21.82)
50 Breast – Brighton Smith (Ooltewah) 38.57
100 Individual Medley – 1. Ellie Taliaferro (Fairyland)
1:09.40 (breaks old record of 1:10.99)
9-10 BOYS
100 Free – 1. Sam Powe (Big Ridge) 1:04.56
200 Medley Relay – 1. Dalton 2:23.70
50 Breast – 1. Will Haley (Dalton) 38.67
100 Individual Medley – 1. Will Haley (Dalton) 1:14.53
11-12 GIRLS
100 Free – 1. Grayson Payne (Cleveland) 57.42
200 Medley Relay – 1. Signal Mountain 2:04.63
50 Breast – 1. Jewel Gordon (Signal Mountain) 32.04
(breaks old record of 32.84)
100 Individual Medley – 1. Grayson Payne (Cleveland)
1:04.75
11-12 BOYS
100 Free – 1. Emilio Valdez (Dalton) 54.82
200 Medley Relay – 1. Dalton 2:06.42
50 Breast – 1. Henry Bethel (Dalton) 35.06
100 Individual Medley – 1. Emelio Valdez (Dalton) 1:02.56
13-14 GIRLS
100 Free – 1. Gwennie Davis (Stuart Heights) 58.25
200 Medley Relay – 1. Stuart Heights 2:03.02
50 Breast – 1. Carley Braman (Fairyland) 33.70
100 Individual Medley – 1. Gwennie Davis (Stuart Heights)
1:05.15
13-14 BOYS
100 Free – 1. Peter Dyr (Dalton 52.41
200 Medley Relay – 1. Dalton 1:48.38 (breaks old record
of 1:48.98)
50 Breast – 1. Thomas Porter (Signal Mountain) 29.18
100 Individual Medley – 1. Gabriel Johnson (Ringgold)
58.21
15-18 GIRLS
100 Free – 1. Kristen Myers (Fairyland) 52.76
200 Medley Relay – 1. Signal Mountain 1:50.71 (breaks old
record of 1:56.64)
50 Breast – 1. Susannah LaRochelle (Signal Mountain) 29.74
(breaks old record of 31.03)
100 Individual Medley – 1. Susannah LaRochelle (Signal
Mountain) 58.56 (breaks old record of 1:01.20)
15-18 BOYS
100 Free – 1. Sam McHugh (Signal Mountain) 46.71
200 Medley Relay – 1. Dalton 1:37.90 (breaks old record
of 1:38.92)
50 Breast – 1. Chris Butler (Stuart Heights) 27.58
100 Individual Medley – 1. Sam McHugh (Signal Mountain)
52.41
(Email John Hunt at nomarathonmoose@comcast.net)