The young men and women who take on the responsibility of being a head coach for a summer swim team can really have their hands full at times.
Making sure all of their slots are filled with swimmers in each age group of every event. Making sure they all swim legally to minimize disqualifications. And maybe the most important of all is making sure everyone shows up on meet days, especially when that meet might be on the road, and to be in the right spot at the right time so they don’t miss their heat.
It always helps to have valuable assistant coaches and a host of helpful parents on hand as well.
Catoosa head coach Evan Moeller has been blessed with all the above. Nearly half of his team are in the youngest category with more than 50 in the 8 and under age group, but they are swimming like veterans these days and their record indicates that everything seems to be running smoothly and according to plan.
The Great White Sharks, who will host the Bill Caulkins City Meet on July 8-9, traveled to North Chattanooga on Monday afternoon where they competed with the Country Club Wavemakers. The youngsters from Fort Oglethorpe improved to 4-0 with an impressive victory over the Wavemakers, Catoosa winning impressively by a final score of 445-331.
Country Club falls to 2-3 with Monday’s loss.
The Great White Sharks had a scoring advantage in all seven events, starting with a 71-58 following the opening freestyle races. The difference was 242-186 when the break was taken following the individual medley races and the point spread only got larger.
Moeller was quick to give credit to his younger swimmers as they’ve really made a lot of progress in the last three weeks, not only in their swimming talent, but their willingness to show up at every meet and willing to do anything that was asked to help their team.
“We’ve had a pretty good meet today as we had more than 100 kids show up today. The younger ones were a lot more calm, but they’ve been showing up on a regular basis and they’re starting to swim correctly without getting disqualified,” he said while freestyle relay teams were gathering.
“I have some great assistant coaches and the parents have been great as well. All of that allows me to just sit back and enjoy some good swimming, but we’re getting better and better with each meet. That’s all I’m looking for
“These kids always have fun and that’s a big deal, but we race every day in practice. We have a bunch of younger swimmers so we’re in the building stage right now. We have a chance to be really good in a few years,” he added.
Country Club coach Stan Corcoran was just happy to see this meet contested after a poor weather forecast earlier in the day,
“I’m just glad we got the meet in, but we’re just trying to do the best we can with what we have,” he said during the freestyle relay.
“The kids are having fun, but the biggest thing is the job we’ve done cutting down on our DQs and all of our silly mistakes. This is our final regular-season meet and we’ll take advantage of having the next 10 days to really gear up for the City Meet. But we’ve had a really good summer and I’m so happy we’re almost back to normal after having to change so much in the last two years,” he added.
Catoosa had three swimmers with the maximum 19 points, including Wade Christopher, Helen Webb and Gunnar Corvin.
Bella Christopher had 18 points while Julia Striker and Allie O’Donnell both chipped in with 17.
Zeki House topped Country Club with 19 points while Chamberlain Johnson, Ellie Tabibiazar and Thomas Gillenwater all finished with 17 points.
While the regular season is now complete for Country Club, Catoosa still has a couple of big meets remaining, including on Thursday at Calhoun. Then just five days later and three days before the City Meet, they will host the Blue Barracudas in a meet that was postponed by weather on June 6.
(Email John Hunt at nomarathonmoose@gmail.com)