After winning their 17th straight county championship, the Starr’s Mill swim team heads to state this weekend. Twenty-one girls and boys qualified this year after both teams finished first in county.

“For the first time in probably four or five years both the girls and the boys won first [in the county championship],” coach Robin Huggins said. “We had kids that made their best times of the year at this meet, which is really exciting.”

On the girls side 11 qualified for state, while on the boys side 12 qualified. University of Georgia commit and lone senior Donna Blaum, junior Kylee Bogumill, sophomores Hayeon Choi,  Alyson Phinney,  Hannah Price, Emma Posey, and Aubrey Stewart, freshmen Holly Hatch, Breanna Kuzusko, Caroline Carle, and Hope Christensen are among the girls traveling to state. For the boys, seniors Brian Buck, Connor Donohue, Ryan Lussos, Alex Stephens, and Nick Palmer, juniors Tyler Groenig, Matt Hargrove, and Ben Miller, sophomores Luke Presley, Vlad Taylor, and Filip Borjeson, and freshman Ben Phifer all qualified.

Despite the team winning their 17th straight county title and so many swimmers qualifying for state, Huggins still sees room for improvement.

“We have cut down our practices a little bit,” Huggins said. “We are really focusing on starts and turns and the relay transitions because when we get to state it may be a few hundredths of a second that separate first and second place.”

The state meet is this weekend at Georgia Tech. Preliminaries begin at 6 p.m. on Friday, with finals scheduled for Saturday at 6 p.m.