From the Head Coach
Championship Season Is Here
It's here! After 6 months of training, we have arrived at the Short Course Championship Season. With 9 different meets in the immediate future, we have a championship for every swimmer on the team. One of the potential changes (depending on the meet) is how we process meet entries. While for many of the upcoming meets, the entry process will remain the same, some of them will use USA Swimming's online meet entry (OME). The first meet on our schedule using OME will be the Southeastern Swimming Winter Championships. To enter the SES Championships, every family will need to log into their own USA Swimming account.
Once logged in, look for the competition tab at the top.
From there, you will see "My Meets" in the drop-down menu were you will be able to choose "Southeastern Swimming Winter Championships. The coaching staff will need to add all the athletes into the meet but once we do, you will be able to see your swimmer there and choose events.
For this particular meet, swimmers will be required to have achieved at least one Southeastern cut. Every swimmer will also be guaranteed four races using the following formula:
- 1 qualifying time plus 3 bonus events
- 2 qualifying times plus 2 bonus events
- 3 qualifying times plus 1 bonus events
- 4, 5 or 6 qualifying times and no bonus events
Remember that you can choose any event, 200 and shorter, for bonus events (open events are also not eligible for any swimmers who have not qualified in other open events). As always, please feel free to reach out to your coaches for any questions.
2026 Mardi Gras Invite
Congratulations to all of our swimmers who competed this past weekend in the 2026 TYR Mardi Gras Meet. In our final home meet of the short course season, just under 400 Excel swimmers took to the pool against visiting SES athletes in a prelims/finals format. A special "Congrats" goes out to Daniel Happy who made the National Team by hitting his NCSA Junior National cut in the 100 Back and also to Brooklyn Lewis who set two new team records in the 11-12 girls 1,000 free and 200 Back. Thank you to our visiting teams for making the trip, you all really made the meet fun and exciting. Thank you as well to all of our officials, both home and visiting and to our parent volunteers. Without you, none of this would ever happen. Finally, a "Thanks" to our coaching staff for the long weekend on deck! Full Meet Report Below
Pictures from the Meet
2026 Championship Meets
The 2026 Championship Meet Season will see Excel swimmers competing in 9 championship meets! While no swimmers will compete in all 9, most of them will swim more than one. Navigating the pathway through the championship selection process can be a little confusing for newer families so we have created a self-navigated guide to get you all through it.
As always, your best resource will be your swimmer's own coach so if you have any questions regarding which championship meets your swimmers should attend, please don't hesitate to reach out.
Excel Aquatics Swim School
As you may know, Excel Aquatics has a swim school that offers lessons in multiple locations. While "creating" new swimmers is a nice benefit, the true purpose is offering what may be a life-saving skill to as many new swimmers as possible. In that vein, we are looking to expand our teaching staff and that's where our parents come in! If you are one of the many of our parents that are already at the pool during practices we would love to recruit you! While there is no prior teaching experience necessary, this will be a paid position that even comes with a 50% discount for monthly dues for your swimmer at Excel (or for the highest level swimmer for families with multiple children). If you are interested in signing up, please contact our Swim School Director Dawn Van Ryckeghem at coachdawn@excelaquatics.org
How are we stacking up?
Throughout the short course season, we will be carefully following our team's national ranking as we aim to break into the top 40 for the first time every. You can follow along here!
Excel recognition programs
Over the course of the short course season, our club will be tracking a series of recognition programs to help motivate our swimmers to succeed un a multitude of events. While ultimately these programs do reward success, they are designed to be achievable by any level of swimmers, not just those with the most experience. You can always find the running totals for each on the "Running Total" report.
Heat Winner: Place in the top three swimmers in your age group for number of races won throughout the year. This award tends to favor those athletes that are attending meets, swimming a lot of events, racing hard but most importantly, improving throughout the year. Winners will receive a "Heat Winner" bag tag. IMX Awards
- IMX Bronze- Earn an IMX score between 1,000-1,999
- IMX Silver- Earn an IMX score between 2,000-2,999
- IMX Gold- Earn a minimum score of 3,000
IM Hall of Fame
- Level 1- Attain a Southeastern Championship Qualifying time standard in every event available for your age group.
- Level 2- Attain an Age Group Sectionals Championship Qualifying time standard in every event available for your age group.
- Level 3-Attain an NCSA Junior National Championship Qualifying time standard in every event available for your age group.
Want to become a swimming official?
All of our parent volunteers play a vital role in hosting meets. We simply could not host meets in your absence. While most jobs take little training or experience, meet officials go through an educational and training process that enables them to help officiate at all meets. In fact, our own Excel officials have outnumbered the host team officials in both our first two meets. We are very grateful to our officiating crew but are always looking for new members. What do officials do?
- Ensure a safe and fair competition for all our athletes
- Satisfy all their volunteer requirements
- Have the best seat in the pool
- Have access to hospitality
If you have any interest in becoming a USA Swimming Certified official, please contact Laura DeMotte at officials@excelaquatics.org
Excel Weekly Update
Our Weekly Update for 1-23-26 has been released so check it out! You may have noticed that we are receiving intros from a wide variety of sources. Olympians, SEC Champions, officials, swim moms and vendors are just some of the folks who have made an appearance. If you are traveling and want to send us an intro from a unique location, we'll be sure to include it. Interested in seeing where they all come from so far? Check out Excel Aquatics from around the world below!
Check out where our intros have come from on this World Map
Have a questions for a coach? Feel free to reach out.
- Brentwood High Performance: Steven Murry- Head Coach
- Brentwood Senior Groups: Benji DeMotte- Site Coordinator
- Brentwood Varsity Groups: Brennan Riddle
- Brentwood Junior Groups: McKenna Morello
- Brentwood Teal & Bronze: Daun Lutz
- Gallatin All Groups: Andreea Ianoli-Mitrofan- Site Coordinator
- Murfreesboro All Groups: JJ Langhals- Site Coordinator
- Spring Hill All Groups: Carrie Vaughan- Site Coordinator
- Muletown All Groups: Lynn Powell
- Administration: Shannon Oliver- Team Administrator
- Meet Director: Lori Biller
How are We stacking up?
2025-2026 Running Season Totals
Click here to see how our season is progressing vs our competition both locally and nationally.
Sponsorship Corner
We are so grateful for all of our partners whose support of Excel Aquatics makes much of what we do possible. You can visit each of our sponsors using the links below.
Interested in becoming a sponsor of Excel Aquatics? Contact: Sponsorships@excelaquatics.org