Wow!  I can't believe we finally won a meet.  It was such a great night.  We had over 120 swimmers and were able to beat Roxboro 428-353!  If you weren't there, it was a site to see!  

For those of you who don't know the history, the Barracudas started with the help of Murphy Candler back in about 2012.  We had about 20 swimmers and only swam 2 home meets vs Murphy Candler and 2 away meets at Murphy Candler.  We didn't keep score, everyone got ribbons, and it was volunteer coached by parents and lifeguards at the pool.  It grew to about 80 swimmers, we found Coach Kate and Coach Anna to come in and start growing the program, and in 2021 we decided to join ASA, which is the league we are in now.  We grew the swim team exponentially from 2021 until now.  Our team has always been full of young kids.  We knew starting a program from scratch and getting older kids to stick around takes time.  In the 4 years we have swam in ASA, we have never really won a dual meet.  

Well... after several thousand times of answering our swimmers when they come up and ask me what the score is and me telling them just to swim their hardest and have fun, I could finally show them the score and tell them that we were likely going to win so swim hard!  It was great to see their faces light up and all the smiles until the end of the meet when they were all jumping in the pool to celebrate.  

I see where the kids get their competitiveness from as we had a blast swimming parents and coaches in the relay right before the meet started. We know the coaches are fast but who knew we had so much talent on the sidelines.  I think we are onto something and will continue this tradition by possibly making it a fundraiser for a local charity next season.  Congrats to Hunter Chandler, Brent Pease, Erin Peters, and Brenden Whalen on coming in 1st place!  

It was also awesome to have our first senior swim.  I hope we can keep that tradition going and have many more swimmers get recognized the way Coach Matteo got to be recognized.  That was a nice way to put a bow on the 2025 regular season for our Briarwood Barracudas.  Good luck to those swimming in ASA and GRPA State.  All swimmers can swim in practice on Wednesday and Thursday,  9+ can swim in practice Wednesday morning, ASA Championships on Friday, and we have our annual Guppy Meet for all 5/6 year olds on Saturday.

We plan to have an end of the season party on Tuesday July 8th.  More details to come but save the date!

Thanks!

Michael Sussman