2024 Meet Schedule (Practice Schedule Still to Come)

Good afternoon, Torpedo Family!

Here are the dates for our meets this summer! Mark your calendars! Addresses for each facility are in parentheses.

Home meets will have an 8am warm-up, and away meets will have a 5:30pm warm-up, except Sprint/Distance and the championship meet on August 3. 

Remember, you need to swim in two regular season meets in order to participate in champs meet!

Tuesday, June 11: VTST at Forest City (217 Clay St, Forest City, NC 28043)

Saturday, June 15: Lenoir/Watauga at VTST (HOME)

Thursday, June 20: VTST at Black Mountain (401 Laurel Circle Drive
Black Mountain, NC 28711)

Saturday, June 22: Forest City/ Shelby at VTST (HOME)

Thursday, June 27: VTST at Watauga (231 Complex Dr., Boone, NC 28607)

Saturday, June 29: Black Mountain at VTST (HOME)

Saturday, July 6: Granite Falls at VTST (HOME)

Thursday, July 11: VTST at Granite Falls (56 Pinewood Rd, Granite Falls, NC 28630)

Saturday, July 13: SPRINT/DISTANCE MEET at Forest City (For Swimmers 11 and Up ONLY)

Friday, July 19: VTST at Shelby (850 W Sumter St, Shelby, NC 28150)

Saturday, August 3: TSL CHAMPS AT SHELBY (850 W Sumter St, Shelby, NC 28150) 

2024 Season Information Preview

Hello Torpedo Family!

I hope this finds everyone well as we start to see the weather warm up and people get outdoors.

No doubt you all are aware of our pool situation here, but please know we are working hard to make sure we have a winter option in place. It should not impact our summer operations at all.

Team representatives will be meeting Saturday, March 23 in Shelby to set the schedule for the summer meets. We will continue hosting our meets on Saturdays, but we will likely still have away meets on week nights.

I will begin putting out posts over the next few weeks as we approach our sign up start date of April 8. Sign ups will be online again this year (valdese.recdesk.com), and a T-shirt and a latex cap will be included in the registration fee. We will still offer silicone caps, but those will need to be purchased separately. Practices will start Monday, May 20 with two weeks of after school practices before we switch to our divided practices on June 3. We will host a kick off event at the pool on Friday, May 17 from 5-6pm.

Probably the biggest thing to mention is the change in date of the Championship Meet. Shelby will be hosting the meet this year, but the meet will be held Saturday, August 3. This is a change from our traditional last Saturday in July meet, but the majority of teams voted to allow this change for this year only. I know several of our families have vacations that interfered with meet participation in the past, and I know this may likely be the case with the altered date, as well.

I do need to offer an apology with how last year ended. We never hosted our traditional end of year gathering where we handed out ribbons and medals to our swimmers. I apologize that didn't take place. We have all of your swimmers medals and ribbons available at the pool counter, and you are welcome to come pick them up at your convenience. Please go ahead and mark your calendars this year for Friday, August 16 in the Splash Pad Building for a team potluck from 5-7pm. We will get ribbons and medals to everyone then and have some great fun celebrating the end of the season.

We had a great season last year, and I am looking forward to another great season this year!

Countdown to Conference: Two Weeks to Go!

Good afternoon, Torpedo Family!

We wrapped up last week with a good showing at Sprint Distance, and I'm really excited how our swimmers did. Many took on some challenging events as first timers, and I'm proud of your perseverance. Even Coach Rhy and I got into the act with the Llama Relay (you kinda had to be there).

With two weeks remaining in the season, we have a lot to do. Remember, if you haven't swam two meets by the end of this week, you're ineligible for the championship meet. This week is your last chance to be eligible!

This Thursday we go to Granite Falls. I need entries no later than Tuesday night.  I will use both the paper and SignUpGenius sign up for Thursday. Volunteers can sign up here. We will need 12 people to help time, so please consider doing it.

Saturday morning July 22 we host Black Mountain. We were outnumbered this past Thursday before the storms, but we challenged and defeated them in certain categories. We need to have a good home dual meet showing on the 22nd. Please sign up by Thursday night for Saturday's meet on paper at the counter or here on the SignUpGenius. We will need several additional volunteers (SignUp Here) than usual as we will be running eight lanes instead of six. 

Conference is Saturday, July 29. Please plan on being there all day. Please remember you MUST have swam two meets to participate. I need to have you all signed up by the end of the meet this Saturday (7/22) if you are planning to come. Sign up for conference on paper or sign up here!

As we are hosting this meet, we will need several "section chiefs" to assist with clerk of course, awards/hospitality (this is mostly in the party room in the bowling alley), and on-deck operations (timing, starting, runners). More on these roles will be available later this week, but I'd like to have all of our conference volunteers in place by this Friday. That sign up link is forthcoming.

At conference, we always have a traditional coaches/parents relay race known as the Fools in the Pool races. Please sign up to participate in those relays here. Each person swims a single length, and we it will give you a great chance to cool off and show off your awesome swimming skills! It's a lot of fun, and the kids love it, too.

Finally, our theme this year is TSL Goes to the Movies, and as a team, we need to adopt a movie that coaches/volunteers/swimmers can dress up as. Here is a Google Form link for you to provide your input!

Thanks for a great season thus far, and I'm looking forward to a strong finish!