Wednesday, Jun. 30, 2010

Young swimmers are making a splash

Grace Countie can't hear much when she's churning down the lane of a swimming pool battling for a win, but she sure can hear her coach shouting instructions and encouragement.

"He is really, really loud," Grace, 10, said with a giggle.

When she hears specific signals from her Marlins of Raleigh coach, Jon Vorpagel, Grace knows that she needs to lift her hips higher in the water or make her arms work faster for the sake of winning a race.

It must work.

Grace, a fourth-grader at Sycamore Creek Elementary School in North Raleigh, brought home six first-place finishes from Savannah, Ga., on June 20. Her Marlins team dominated the Edwin C. Cuttino Memorial Long Course Invitational Swim Meet, finishing first in 47 events and scoring a whopping 1,560 points. The Southern Marlins Racing Team of Charleston finished a distant second with 479 points.

"We took 84 swimmers and swam really well," said Paul Silver, Marlins of Raleigh head coach. "We were excited with the championship."

Grace, who declares she never gets tired of swimming, contributed 67 of her team's points all by herself. For such a young athlete, she's driven and competitive.

"When I am racing, I always think I am going as fast as I can go, and after I swim, I always think I could have done more, even when I win," she said.

And Grace loves to win.

"Winning means I have worked hard in practice, and hard work pays off a bunch," she said.

Grace started swimming when she was 3.

"I remember begging my mom to let me do swimming. My mom let me swim and then made my brother do it with me," Grace said. "My mom knew my brother wanted to swim, even though he didn't know that himself."

Grace's brother, Will, agrees. "I started swimming because my mom made me," he said. "She wanted me to try, but I didn't want to."

It took an entire year, but the 12-year old finally got into it and is winning races too. He took first place in the 200-meter backstroke at the Cuttino Invitational. He gives his coach and teammates credit for keeping him in the sport even when he didn't want to be there.

"My coach pushed me because he thought I was talented," Will said. "Then I started dropping my times, and my friends encouraged me."

Scott Johnson, a sophomore at Leesville Road High School, loves to swim fast. In Savannah, he won six sprinting events, scoring 63 points for the Marlins of Raleigh. It's a big payoff for spending more than 12 hours a week in the pool, in addition to hours of workouts on dry land. He's 14 now, and when he turns 15, he'll add weight lifting to his regimen.

"Six races were the most I have ever won, and it was a pretty cool experience," Scott said.

Scott's idol is Olympian Michael Phelps. After six victories, Scott has an idea of how Phelps must have felt after winning eight gold medals.

"I'm prepared to take swimming to the next level," Scott said. "I'd like to become a national level swimmer. I'd love to swim at the U.S. Open. That would be pretty cool."

Ashley McCauley, 9, is a fourth-grader at York Elementary School in Midtown Raleigh. She won the 50-meter breaststroke in Savannah.

Ashley is a third-generation swimmer. Her parents and her grandmother were swimmers in their youth.

"Swimming runs in our family," she said. "I thought I'd be like them, and I want to carry on the tradition."

While swimming gives Ashley self-confidence in her everyday life, it's mostly in the pool that she feels powerful. "I can feel myself getting stronger, and it feels really good," she said.

For these swimmers, winning is not everything. The friendships they have made over the years have made their 5 a.m. wake-up calls worthwhile.

"Being in the pool so much gives me time to play with my friends and to enjoy swimming at the same time," Grace said. "Swimming is great because you get to have fun with your friends and accomplish things in life."

Ashley loves swimming because it is a lifelong sport. "You can start at age 5 and swim until you're 100," she said. "You can just go on forever."

For someone who wants to swim forever, she and her teammates are off to a good start.