The swim team will compete at the swim meet hosted by North Atlanta High School on Thursday Jan. 9. They will travel to the Adamsville Rec Center in southwest Atlanta for the meet, which will begin at 6 p.m. The team chose not to go the Indian Invite at the Mountain View Aquatic Center in Cobb County on Jan. 11 to promote competition among the APS schools.

“I expect our girls team to be very competitive, and our boys team will surprise some of the competition there,” head coach and math teacher John Rives said.

This is Grady’s first time ever competing in this meet, and Rives said he expects the team to finish second overall, behind only North Atlanta.

Grady is also preparing for the City Championship, which takes place on Jan. 28. Grady competes against a number of schools ranging from Class A to Class AAAA.

“Last year Grady’s girls almost won the city meet, but we were barely beaten by the North Atlanta team,” Rives said. “Historically Grady is disadvantaged against larger schools like North Atlanta because of the number of students that they can attract.”

Since many teams compete at both, the NAHS meet will be a way for the team to see how they size up against the competition.

The Grady team has already qualified two individual swimmers and a relay team for the state meet. Freshman Melissa Brown qualified in the 50- and 100-yard free-style, and junior Lia Pett has qualified in the 100-meter backstroke and the 200-meter individual medley.