By BAKER ELLIS / Sports Editor

NORTH SHELBY – The Inverness Country Club is once again playing host to the Inverness Wave, the club-sponsored swim team that practices out of ICC and competes against other Shelby County and Jefferson County teams. Molly Waddell, a rising senior at Birmingham Southern who is on BSC’s swim team, is the head coach this summer, and has had the opportunity to watch her swimmers develop.

“My favorite part is watching how excited the little kids get when they get a new best time,” Waddell said. “Just watching them smile and grow a love for the sport I have loved since an early age is great.”

There are 48 swimmers on the Wave this summer, and they range in age from 5-15. Waddell and the other Wave coaches break the swimmers up into three levels of ability, gold, silver and bronze. The younger ones are in the bronze level, and only swim one lap at a time. They can swim freestyle and backstroke very efficiently, Waddell said, and, “they’re working on the butterfly and breaststroke.”

The Wave compete in the Jefferson Shelby Swim Council, a summer swim league which includes teams from Jefferson and Shelby County, in the small division. They have five regular season meets per summer, which is followed by a senior county meet, which is open to all swimmers who have qualified during the regular season meets.

Waddell said that Inverness recently won its first meet in more than two years on July 6, when the Wave hosted a meet against the Birmingham Parks and Rec swim team.

Waddell is a collaborative education major at Birmingham Southern, and wants to continue to coach summer league swimming upon her graduation. She swims the 50, 100, and 200-fresstyle for the BCS swim team.

The Jefferson Shelby Swim Council has 22 member teams in both counties combined. For more information on the Inverness Wave, visit Inverness Country Club’s Facebook page at Facebook.com/pages/Inverness-Country-Club/.