Confidence high as Dragons swimmers set to start season

As the Carroll swimming and diving team gets set for the season to start next month, coach Kevin Murphy said he is optimistic his team is in for another good year.

The boys team won a state title last season and the girls finished sixth overall, and one of the things that Murphy said really impresses him about this year’s team is the amount of depth.

“We have an amazing boys team,” Murphy said. “We are deep and strong and have a bunch of great kids. This summer, we were third in NISCA power points in the country and first among public schools, and we’re a lot better this year than we were last year.”

Murphy said that he had a number of athletes swimming for the North Texas Nadadores or Lakeside Aquatic Club over the summer and said the numbers for this year are oneof the things that impress him most.

“We have 58 boys swimming and 63 girls swimming this year,” Murphy said. “Our girls have made some progress, as well. We were sixth at state last year, and we are hoping to be in the top three in state. We’d like to think we can make a run at state this year, but Austin Westlake is awfully good.”

Carroll will compete in a meet in Belton on Nov. 7 that will give the girls the opportunity to compete against Westlake, which won the 6A state championship, and Austin Vandergriff, which won the girls 5A state championship last season.

“We’ll kind of test ourselves and see where we’re at,” Murphy said.

The season starts on Oct. 3 with the Ranger Relays, and Murphy said it should be a good introduction to the type of competition they will be facing this season.

“There will be 16 teams there from the Dallas-Fort Worth area there,” Murphy said. “It is an exciting kickoff to the season.”

On the boys side, Austin Whalen, Noah Faloona, Sean Murphy and Alex Moraru should lead the way, and on the girls side, look for Nasha Luevit, Kate Johnson, Olivia Coffey and Mary Courtney.

“Some of our very best swimmers are our younger kids,” Murphy said. “I just have to scratch my head, but I would not want to coach against us.”

Nate Hernandez, who was selected as last year’s National Interscholastic Swim Coach’s Association’s Diver of the Year last season, and Madison Keiser on the girls side return for the Dragons as well.

This story was originally published September 21, 2015 at 3:29 PM with the headline "Confidence high as Dragons swimmers set to start season."