THOMASVILLE — The Thomasville YMCA swim team hosted their annual swim meet at the Butler-Mason YMCA on Saturday. The meet featured five swim teams from Georgia and Florida and the Rays performed very well.
Thomasville took first as a team, just as they did last year at the meet. The Rays also did well individually as many of their swimmers took top scores in their age divisions.
The pool was packed with swimmers, as the YMCA competitive swim program has boomed over the past couple of years.
“The program is growing like crazy,” said Thomasville YMCA Aquatics Director Jake Parmer, who has been with the YMCA for two years. “When I first started we had maybe 15-20 kids on the whole swim team. Now, if we put everyone together with all ages and we hit close to 40.”
The YMCA has also been focusing on building their swim team with younger kids opening up a competitive division for four to six year olds. Because of the size of the age groups, not usually exceeding 10 kids, many of the swimmers are able to receive more one on one instruction from their age group coaches. This has led to quick development in the younger age groups for the Rays. This was on full display at the meet.
“This was a lot of our swimmers first meet ever. We had a lot of six and unders,” said Parmer. “So, we had five and six year olds doing the swim meet for the first time and they did really good too.”
The Thomasville Rays swim team will compete again later this month at the district meet in Moultrie. The top three scorers in each event will then move on to the state swim meet, which will take place on July 14.