The Carpet Capital Aquatics Club had two amazing accomplishments at the Georgia Senior State Championships the weekend before last in Atlanta.
One was the collective excellence of the CCAC boys, who qualified five relay teams for the National Club Swimming Association’s junior nationals in mid-March in Orlando, Fla. University of California signee Ethan Young, Emilio Valdez and Brandt Hudson were on all five of the qualifying relays, and Young won the 200- and 100-yard backstrokes in the meet at Georgia Tech.
But although the boys’ achievements were remarkable, they weren’t particularly surprising.
Not so with the lone girl from the Dalton, Ga., club who qualified for junior nationals. Reese Bingham slipped just under the 50 freestyle cut time despite undergoing shoulder surgery in late August and having been released for full training only about a month.
“I wasn’t expecting too much,” the 16-year-old homeschooled sophomore and former Christian Heritage student said last week. “I wasn’t expecting to go better than my best times – just expecting to be somewhere around there. I’m still getting back in shape.”