Kacy Edsall of Botetourt County, who swims with the Carter Center Aquatics Marlins, recently qualified for the Junior Nationals coming up this spring in Orlando.

Joe Russo provides the following account of the Carter Center Aquatics swim team at a recent qualifying meet — plus this photo gallery of the swimming action.

The gallery has photos of Kacy swimming, but we especially liked this photo here, where we see Kacy (second from left, next to the coach) cheering on one of her teammates.

In a manner befitting an already tremendous season, Carter Center Aquatics (CCA) senior team swam virtually all life-best times, including nine new NSCA Junior National qualifying times, and captured an overall 2nd place medium team finish at the Virginia Short Course Swimming Championships held at the Aquatic and Fitness Center in Charlottesville March 5-8.

Four different swimmers qualified for the Junior National championships held in Orlando next week, including life-long Marlin Grace Aheron, in her last meet with the team. Aheron, a soon-to-be-graduate of Patrick Henry, swam personal-best times in all six of her events. Kacy Edsall, Kelsey Holmgaard and Katherine Moles qualified as well, with seven of the new cuts between them.

“It was a long season and it is great to see this group swim so well,” said CCA Head Coach Greg Johnson. “After the high school season, I wasn’t sure how much was left in these kids to get up and race.”

Many of the swimmers on CCA were also on the Hidden Valley High School women’s team that captured the AA state title. Katie Campbell, Danielle Dillon, Drew Dillon, and Katherine Moles all competed last weekend with impressive results, just a week after the state meet.

Mark Adams, a Hidden Valley sophomore, dropped over a minute in his mile swim, just seconds away from National qualifying, and was selected to represent Virginia in a multi-region swimming meet in April. Sal Russo also swam best times in the 400 individual medley, 200 backstroke, 100 butterfly and 500 freestyle.

The Marlins are concluding their season with the Age Group team going to Manassas March 20-22 and the quartet of senior swimmers will travel to Orlando early next week. The new season begins April 1. For more information, visit www.ccamarlins.com.

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