Splashdown nears for Swim Devils

Published 9:00 am Wednesday, November 2, 2016

TIFTON, Ga. — Winter sports start Friday for Tift County and head swimming coach Ivey Vickers said, “It’s going to be an exciting week.”

Vickers, who is the head coach for both swimming and tennis as well as assisting with many other sports for the Blue Devils and Lady Devils, will send the swim teams off to Columbus Friday for the Columbus Invitational. That is merely the season opener for the teams, but one that could be a major impact for them.

The prep swim season ends with the state finals in February, but athletes can already qualify for the meet via state cut times. Vickers hopes that some of her team members will meet that goal at Columbus. Close on its heels will be the squad’s second meet, the dual meet at the Tifton YMCA next Tuesday that also involves Jeff Davis and will include middle and high school teams.

Swimming has been increasingly a success for Devil squads. Both boys and girls have swept the region titles for the past two years and the girls have won three straight titles. Naturally, they are looking for repeats.

“We hope to finish on top of the region and make it back to state,” said Vickers. The 2015-16 season saw 17 different athletes get to participate in state at Georgia Tech as either qualifiers or alternates, a number she believed was the most ever for Tift.

The overall goal involves going to state. She would love to be able to get swimmers into the last day of the state meet, when the finals are held. “That’d be awesome,” she said.

Tift lost some of its most successful athletes to graduation, but have an equally stellar group returning. “We have a bunch of great kids coming back,” she said.

One of the biggest assets for the team has been the success of the TIftarea Tidal Wave, which competes in the Georgia Park and Recreation Association. She said it has been “really the backbone of our program.” Most — if not all — Swim Devils compete with the squad during the summer, which she said had provided good competition.

After their first two meets, middle schoolers will go to Darton State for a Lee County-hosted meet Nov. 11. The remainder of the 2016-17 schedule has a few differences than that of years past.

“We get to go out and swim places we haven’t been,” Vickers said. One of the new meets is Swim Against Hunger, which takes place Nov. 18 at Milledgeville. Another change is the Savannah-Chatham County Public School System meet Jan. 7. While new to Tift County, she said that several individual team members had been to events there before.

Other high school meets will be the Coffee Trojan Invite Dec. 3, the Blue Devil Invitational Dec. 10 (at Darton, with both high and middle schools), the Thomasville Invite Dec. 16, the Trojan Invitational Jan. 14 (at Darton, both high and middle). Region will be Jan. 20 at Darton with the annual “Last Chance Meet” at the Tifton YMCA Jan. 23.