 the county last year.
Leading the boys team will be Dylan Villhauer, who qualified for state the previous year.
Joining Richards as new coaches in the county are Cherokee’s Mark Segall and Creekview’s Patrick Fuller.
Segall is taking over for Michelle Duren, who stepped down for family reasons and will be taking on more of an assistant-coaching role in the coming year.
In only his second year of coaching, and first as a head coach, Segall will benefit from a roster that has almost doubled in size from last year.
“Honestly, I don’t know where they all came from,” said Segall, whose roster now has over 50 swimmers listed. “I like it, though.”
Though Cherokee didn’t manage to send any swimmers to the state meet last year, only two seniors graduated, leaving Segall confident that this season may be different.
“We have a lot of experienced seniors this year,” Segall said. “I expect we’ll have a lot of swimmers competing for spots at state.”
Swimmers to watch for the Warriors will be sophomore Sam Harp for the boys and senior Abby Martin for the girls.
Fuller expects Creekview’s performance to improve this year, thanks to a revamped training schedule. He’s hoping that swimmers such as senior Stone Peterson and sophomore Brittany Creasy can lead the Grizzlies to state.
Cherokee and Creekview won’t be the only teams looking to improve upon last year, as River Ridge will receive the benefit of its first senior class.
“Our senior class has worked hard to build the foundation of our program,” fourth-year coach Sarah Goodbread said. “We have some great leaders on this team that will take us in the right directions. Hopefully, we’ll put in a strong showing at the county meet and send of some swimmers to state.”
Goodbread feels the Knights’ biggest challenge will come in the form of just how small their roster is when compared to those of the other schools in the county.
“We only have 29 swimmers, so we don’t have the depth of some of the other schools,” she said. “I think the swimmers that we do have will have to make up for our small numbers with attitude and effort.”
While Cherokee, River Ridge and Creekview looking to continue improving their programs, it seems that and Woodstock will pose the biggest threat to Etowah’s county dominance.
With Sequoyah having graduated a large number of swimmers, the task of toppling Etowah is shaping up to be a difficult one for coach Nell Hess.
“We are definitely rebuilding,” she said. “We lost quite a number of very good swimmers to graduation and I was concerned that we wouldn’t be able to build back up our numbers, much less obtain the same quality. Fortunately, we managed to gain a few, but we have a lot of new faces.”
Still with the Chiefs are previous state-qualifiers Jack and Ben Syers — both seniors — and captains Victoria Gordon Jarret Levandoski.
Though Woodstock coach J.T. Gillin expects the Wolverines to go through a rebuilding process, he’s been pleasantly surprised with the additions to his roster — specifically for the girls team.
“On the boys side of things, we have a lot of returning swimmers, but we were very worried about the girls,” Gillin said. “Last year, we graduated the best crop of seniors that I have seen since 2006. But by picking up a very deep freshman class, we are a deeper team overall that we were last season. It’s the most talented group I’ve seen in years.”
Leading the way for the Wolverines will be Alarii Levreault-Lopez and freshman Lauren Case, who qualified for the Olympic time trials in the 200 butterfly over the summer before even entering high school.
“You could argue that Alarii is the top swimmer in the county,” Gillin said. “As for Lauren, she’ll definitely be a lock to make state in two events. I’d say she’s the top freshman in the county, and she is awfully fast. People will hear more about her as the year goes along.”RTW: When/Why Did We Start Writing?
It's that time again- time to go on a road trip! Our aces at YA Highway are asking when/why did we start writing? Well, we would like to say that we started writing as soon as we came o ut of the womb- but of course that isn't humanly impossible. Instead, when we both got to the age that we were able to write, we started writing and reading. We both were ahead of the class in English- always reading above grade level, and writing creative stories and poems (yes, we're doing a lil' bragging- but that's okay every now and then, right???). It was a passion that hasn't left us since elementary school.
Pam remembers when she was around 3/4 years old her mom would read Green Eggs and Ham to her. One time, when her mom wasn't there to read it, Pam made her own story to the images in the book! Creating stories at age 3, impressive right?
Pam carried her love for writing to college where she got her undergraduate degree from Old Dominion University in Creative Writing. And now, we are both attending Fairleigh Dickinson University to obtain our MFA in Creative Writing.
Why did we start writing? It started when we were a lot younger and were in need of an escape. We didn't grow up under the best of circumstances, so our characters became portals to another life. And we were always curious, so we explored different worlds/cultures through our stories. Honestly, we're really strange- and delving into the mind of characters is a lot more interesting than the exhilirating world of education :) And now no one could pay us to STOP writing. Whether it be screenplays, teleplays, novels, short stories, poems... we just can't make it stop! Even when we were pursuing our education degrees, we still spent our spare time writing. It's like breathing to us.
So, tell us- when/why did you start writing????
I'm jealous that you guys got to share your love of writing from childhood on!
It started when we were a lot younger and were in need of an escape. We didn't grow up under the best of circumstances....
^ Not to detract, but that's the CLASSIC writer's tale... And they all grow up to be famous, don't you know. Cough cough. Nudge nudge.
Which is a semi-obnoxious way of saying that drawing from hard experiences is an age old ability of great writers, and the fact that you can do it well means something good.
I started reading at 3. The first book was a Muppet Babies book called, Where's My Bottle...lol. I think I was writing stories by the time I was 5 (first grade). In fact, I still have my "early stories"..lol!
I don't really know why I initially started writing. I guess I just liked to envision the perfect life and writing it down made it seem possible to attain. (I used to want to live on a farm, and that's what my first story was about!) These days I write because I cannot imagine myself doing anything other than writing. It is without a doubt my passion. It's an outlet for me when I'm stressed, it drives me, challenges me, I could go on. It's the only thing that can hold my attention for over an hour! My first creative writing course was at USF and the class met 3 times a week for 50 minutes. On the first day when the 50 minutes was up, I was SHOCKED. I was focused the entire class period, and I actually didn't want to leave! That's when I knew that I had to make writing my career. Sorry this was so long!
Racquel- There is no such thing as long when writing about your love for writing :) And that is so cool that you've been writing since age 5- we know exactly what you mean by not being able to live without writing.
BLS- Yes! That is so true about our tale being the classic one- do you forsee us making money soon, then???Sounds like you are already perhaps doing enough just being concerned and looking to do more.  That said, in case you have not personally lost a pet before, maybe this might help just understand what she might be going through now and in the future...

....we put our pup down over a year ago now, and we both still feel a huge sense of loss.  We miss him so much almost 18 months later.  I've lost good friends, parents etc, and we have moved on from their loss as perhaps would be considered "normal".  I don't really even understand why, but the loss of our beloved dog, who loved us as much as we loved him, still hurts.  We say "Hello Newman..." (cue Seinfeld voice), whenever we walk by his picture.  Perhaps it is because they give back so much more than they ever take, it is just a much bigger loss...Idk. Regardless of which subgenre, the big 3 are pretty universally loved across all lanes in hiphop. Thats why they stand out. Artists like carti and yb can dominate in a niche and make great music but nobody has gone commercial, made music that appeals to a majority of people, and kept the same level of artistry in their albums. Consist