With a new season, and new coaches; the swim team are looking to live up to last season this winter. New coaches Victoria Douglas and Coach Kendall are poised and ready to take the Atoms by storm.

“I am very excited to be a part of the AHS Swim and Dive coaching staff. I am looking forward to working with Coach Shelley and the parent volunteers,” Douglas said.

Coach Douglas has been teaching Math at Annandale for the last two years, but this is her first year coaching swim. “I have been swimming ever since I can remember. I swam every summer at my local country club,” Douglas said.

Coach Douglas coaches junior varsity cheerleading as well as swim.

So far the coaches have received a warm welcome, “I have met the new coaches I am excited to see what they will bring to the team and how they will help our team grow,” Senior Ben Padrutt said.

Padrutt is returning for his 4th and final year on the Atoms swim team and is the captain of the team.

Padrutt is looking forward to starting competitions and getting back to the swim team’s traditions, of bleaching their hair for the conference meet. The boys bleach their hair blonde and the girls dye the tips of their hair red.

Fellow senior Rachel Neary is looking forward to another tradition, senior night. “I am looking forward to senior night. It is weird to finally be the senior so I am really excited for it,” Neary said. Coach Douglas is most looking forward to getting to know the student athletes and seeing where the team goes.

With the arrival of some new coaches, the team as a whole doesn’t have any goals yet, but the individual swimmers certainly do.

“My goal for this years swim season is to improve my times from last year and to qualify for regionals in an individual event,” Padrutt said.

The Atoms had success last year with a few individual swimmers; but the boys 200 meter free relay really stole the show by making it all the way to the state competition. The Atoms swim team will be looking for similar success this season.