Competitive Team News for April 2021

Championship Meet Highlights

By Head Coach, Christian Bahr

Ensworth Aquatics is beginning to end the chapter on the 2021Championship short course season in just a few weeks, and I cannot think of a year that has seen more disruptions than this past one. Fresh off the flooding and the severe storms that closed schools all over the area only days before, the winter blast that shut down everything, cancelling 14 & Over Region Championships, and halting practices the week of Senior Southeasterns. Frankly, it seems like something from another lifetime. It was not the way any team would choose to close out its final weeks of preparations heading into the Championships season, but even old man winter could not stop our team from persevering.

Please take a moment and read the Meet Highlights section. Our coaching staff did their best to put into words the energy and determination your swimmers put in every race over the past few weeks. Thank you for your continued support.

Go to Meet Highlights

State High School Meet

By Head Coach, Christian Bahr

For the first time ever, Ensworth will be a host site for the TISCA Swimming and Diving State Championships! Fresh off of hosting our first ever SES Championship (for 14 & Unders), we will be welcoming more than 300 swimmers from across middle Tennessee to our facility the weekend of April 24-25.

This year the State Meet is NOT a prelim/finals event, but a timed final split into two sessions by gender. The other sites hosting the meet are Baylor, Johnson City, and Tupelo, MS.

Swimmer Spotlight

Emily Harris

Congratulations to Emily Harris! Emily has been selected to go to Chula Vista, California this coming October to be a part of USA Swimming’s National Diversity Select Camp! These camps bring together several dozen of the nation’s top young swimmers from diverse backgrounds for a weekend of training, instruction, and motivation! Way to go, Emily!

Maggie Hundley

Maggie showed up to race! She competed in 8 events, placing 1st in five events and 2nd in the other three. She swam personal best times in every race. It was an exceptional meet for her, which earned Maggie High Point for 8-under girls. We are so proud of you, Maggie!

Oliver Pilkinton

Ensworth Aquatics’ Oliver Pilkinton was awarded Outstanding Male Performance at the 2021 short course Southeastern Swimming Championships for his 21.95 winning time in the 50-Yard Butterfly. The award is given to the swim that registers the highest number of Hy-Tek power points in the entire meet.

Bain Schimmel

Bain Schimmel was as dominant as they come at this year’s 14 & Under Southeastern Championships! Not only did he win High Point for his age group, Bain finished the meet 6 for 6: Entered in 6 events and winning all of them! He can add to his collection of hardware gold medals in the 50 Breast, 100 Fly, 100 IM, 200 IM, 50 Fly, and 100 Breast. Bain won a 7th gold as a member of the boys’ winning 200-Yard Medley Relay along with Holden Call, Anderson Attmore, and Charlie Horne. And while he tied Mark Spitz’s 1972 gold medal haul, he just missed on the 2008 Michael Phelps record 8 medals! Though he does have a very fine silver medal from the 200-Yard Free Relay after finishing in second along with teammates Charlie Horne, Anderson Attmore, and Tennyson Webb.

Volunteering

Volunteer Thank You

By Meet Director, Claire McCall

Thank you to everyone who supported the 2021 14&U Southeastern Championships - Tennessee. This was the first “big” meet we have hosted in more than a year much less a championship meet in a pandemic. We had volunteers working sessions that didn’t even have a swimmer in the meet, while others covered sessions beyond their athlete's races. Thank you to everyone on an excellent job! We have received a tremendous amount of compliments about how well the meet ran and how every level of meet management… ranging from hospitality to timers to officials to announcing to the tech table staff….were all simply outstanding!

Thank you again, it takes a lot of great people and an enormous amount of volunteer hours to pull off meets in general especially during the COVID-19 era. Much was learned, but most importantly we had the opportunity to showcase our talented group of volunteers and families that make Ensworth Aquatics great!

Click here to become an official

Our team is still actively recruiting officials. Please consider taking the steps to get certified with U.S.A. Swimmming.

News & Notes

Flood Photos

By Christian Bahr

With a wild week of extreme weather, this week’s warmth and sunshine have been been a real blessing. These images were taken Sunday morning following the storms that flooded the Ensworth campus. Thankfully our facilities were intentionally built above the 2010 flood line to prevent catastrophic damage in the event of another flood. Although the photos look bleak, the only areas that were truly impacted were practice fields, parking lots, and a few buses.

So many of our families reached out to express concern, and I want to thank everyone for taking a moment to lend support not just to our program but to our school.

Stay Connected

GroupMe

If you have not already joined your swimmers' GroupMe, please consider downloading the app and joining. Parents, coaches, and staff use GroupMe to communicate last-minute updates, traffic issues, practice changes, lost and found, carpooling, and much more. Each practice group has its own group text, and we believe if you ask any returning team members, they will confirm that GroupMe is an invaluable communication tool as it enables them to ask specific questions and plan activities particular to their practice group. Use this link to download the GroupMe app.

Use the buttons in the right column to connect with your swimmer's practice group and parent representative.