Sarah Makes Cut!

Sarah Peel and Rachael Hilb loosening up before practice with a little dance.  Both girls had a great meet this past weekend at the BSL/HBT meet at Birmingham's fine new facility.  Sarah lead all Cullman swimmers with a SES cut time in 100 Breaststroke.  She is so close in several events nice to get those cuts early.

Claire Ogstad also had a great meet.  The super 8 year old is close to making the SES cut in the 9-10 Breaststroke.  WOW!  All the swimmers did well with most dropping time at the mid point in the season.  Most notably was Reagan Martin in the 100 Butterfly and Cabri Adams dropping time in all her events.

Coach Lisa discussing a little strategy with Claire Ogstad.  A successful season for all the CSA swimmers, now lets enjoy our Holiday break.  Next up in January is Hoover for the younger swimmers and Baylor for the older.

High School State

It was a crazy packed house once again in Auburn for the 2011 AHSAA State Swimming Championships.  Its hard to imagine another facility that could host this meet, its just big now with all the teams, fans and families....and its FAST!

Cullman Swimming was well represented with swimmers from Cullman High School and Saint Bernard Prep.  Individual qualifiers included CHS's Chris McAlpin, Noah Price, Eric Pilcher and Michelle Pilcher, SBP's Sean Moriarty and Bennett Glasscock.

The tough part of the meet is making it through the prelims on Friday which is such a long day.  Seemed like the 1000 heats finished at 11 pm.  Luckily the swimmers fortunate enough to make the finals get to sleep in on Saturday.

Highlights from the team side of the meet were the CHS relay of  McAlpin, Pilcher, Price and Hollingsworth making the consolation finals in the 4 X 100 Free relay.

On the individual events Bennett Glasscock made the A final in the 100 backstroke and consuls 50 freestyle.  Tough to get into finals, Alabama is a fast state with many great swimmers.

The meet was also a great social happening for the students.  Former Cullman swimmer now Auburn scholar, Stephanie Donaldson worked the meet as a timer and visited with the hometown crowd.

Such a fine facility and so much fun.  Inspiration to all the swimmers to be there in 2012!

McCallie Invitational

CSA swimmers invade The McCallie High School Invitational!  Bennett, Sean and John Paul swam for  Saint Bernard Prep, at the 19th annual meet.  50 high schools and prep schools from Tennessee, Georgia, Kentucky and Virgina competed in the meet.  McCallie located in Chattanooga has a beautiful facility and ran a perfect meet that included over 500 boys and girl swimmers. 

The format for the meet was one day with prelims in the morning and finals in the evening.  Nothing quite like all those screaming swimmers at the finals.  Incredible experience.

I was very proud of our swimmers which were lead by Bennett Glasscock who made the "A" final in both his events, 100 butterfly and backstroke.  His best finish was 5th in the backstroke. Sean Moriarty had an excellent meet making the "B" final in the 50 freestyle and finishing 12th overall in the finals.

This was a great experience for CSA's senior guys being able to swim in a big time high school meet.  The meet also helped prepare them for the upcoming AHSAA State Championships this weekend in Auburn.