}THOMASVILLE — The Thomasville High School Swim Dogs dove into their season in Tifton on Saturday.

Senior Makenna Ponder wasted no time and got off to a hot start in the pool. She placed second in the 200 freestyle and first in the 100 breaststroke and recorded state qualifying times in both events.

Ponder’s success on Saturday has already gotten the Swim Dogs closer to their end goal of the season. Taking a relay team to state.

“Our real goal is to get a relay team to make it to state this year, which would be four girls,” said Thomasville’s head swim coach Margaret Davis. “It would mean a lot this year because it would be one senior and the other three would be freshman and sophomores. So, if we can get a freshman fast enough to get in that relay team it would be tremendous.”

While the veteran swimmer was making her mark, Sophomore McCartney Bell placed third in the 500 freestyle.

The relay team of freshman Campbell Newman, sophomores Katy Roberts and Mccartney Bell, and senior Makenna Ponder took to the pool for the 400 free relay and took third in the race.

The middle school team will kick off its season on Friday at the Butler-Mason YMCA. The following day the varsity squad will dive in at Butler-Mason for the Thomas County Central High School Invitational.