A new coach, new swimmers, and new expectations will be a part of the Allen County-Scottsville High School swim team as the squad takes to the water this week to start their 2019-20 swim season.

   The swim team will be under the direction of veteran swim coach Mitch Clark, a former coach at Bowling Green and Hopkinsville and a longtime coach in the USA swimming amateur program. Since practice started in October, Clark has been evaluating the Lady Patriot and Patriot swimmers.

   “I have been pleasantly surprised,” Clark said. “They are better than I thought they would be. We have 17 kids which is a high number for AC-S. We have several good swimmers and several that are new with a lot of work to do.”

   The swim team still is young with no seniors on the current roster. Of the 17 total swimmers, seven are from the high school with the remaining nine still students at the James E. Bazzell Middle School.

   Junior Tad Kolton Taylor is the most experienced Patriot swimmer, having been in the water since his seventh grade season. Additional boys on the swim team include sophomore Anthony Carranco, freshmen Aaron Shain, Bradley Wagoner, and Drew Long, eighth grader Wessly Butler, and seventh grade students Ryan Wolfe and Kash Taylor.

   Lady Patriot swimmers include sophomore Leah Hartman, freshman Ella Rickard, eighth graders, Shelby Costello, Allison Davis, Sarah Davis, Ann Marie Shirley, and Mattie Tuttle, and seventh graders Emma Brown and Quinn Hartman.

   “Several of the swimmers have been swimming for a while,” Clark added. “For example, some of our middle school kids have more experience than the kids from the high school because they have participated in USA Swimming or the CORE team.”

   Clark has emphasized somewhat of a new practice regiment.

   “We work on different things,” Clark explained. “In swimming, you have to have the technique with the strokes and the endurance. Conditioning is a big part of what we do. I do a lot of drills where the kids work on one part of their stroke. Maybe it’s just kicks or their arms or mixes where they are working on a part of their stroke. I try to do a lot of stroke work.”

   Clark points out that swim coaching has seen more and more emphasis on technique coming off the wall---an emphasis he is bringing to the kids at AC-S.

   “Over the last 20 years or so, the biggest improvement in what kids have learned to do in streamline, off the wall, and off the dive,” Clark said. “It all works together. We will do a part of a set everyday where we are pushing off the wall trying to get that distance. My number one word is streamline, getting as far off the wall as they can before they start swimming. You can push off the wall faster than you can swim and definitely dive off the block faster so you want to use that as much as you can.”

   The season starts Saturday, November 16, as the squad travels to a multi-team meet at Russell County. Next week, AC-S swims at Ohio County in a dual meet before taking part in the Warren County Invitational on Saturday, November 23. Meets are scheduled in December and January leading up to regional competition.  

   “We have two big meets to start with and that will let me know where are kids are,” Clark added. “With the first one, I’m asking kids where they would like to swim. Overall, we will four invitational events, seven dual meets, a tri meet, and a quad meet.”

   The Lady Patriots and Patriots practice at the CORE but all meets will be on the road. The Region 2 meet is slated for Owensboro in February will the state championships in late February.