Seabreeze swim team celebrates Senior Night during meet against Father Lopez

Seabreeze's boys and girls each won. The Green Wave were swimming in their first meet of the season under new coach Leslie Jordan.

  • By Michele Meyers
  • | 3:00 p.m. September 17, 2026
  • Ormond Beach Observer
  • Sports
  • Share

It was Seabreeze Senior Night at the Lydecker Family YMCA in Ormond Beach when swim coach Dr. Scott Bay grabbed the bullhorn and introduced the Sandcrabs' nine seniors during a break in the meet against Father Lopez on Sept. 9. Seabreeze boys and girls went on to win 125-43 and 120-58, respectively.

Bay has coached swimming for 40 years and is in his second year with the Sandcrabs. Bay, who teaches Algebra II and honors pre-calculus at Seabreeze, knew many of the kids on the swim team before deciding to take on the coaching role last year.

“A lot of these kids I’ve either known at school, coached them in age group swimming, or something,” Bay said. “They all go to Seabreeze, or they’re homeschooled, and they want to swim for Seabreeze because their buddies did, or were already swimming there. I didn’t want them hiring just anybody. I wanted to make sure that those kids had someone to take care of them.”

The Seabreeze boys captains are seniors Carter Eby, Graham Johnston and Arthur Simpson. Eby has been swimming for 11 years and said he is a “jack-of-all-trades” because he swims every stroke. He said he was thankful that Bay and coach Tiffany Waters stepped in to coach.

“They (Bay and Waters) were able to step in and bring the team up when we had no idea what we were going to do — they made the team better,” Eby said.

“I’m hoping that we can get every person to go to districts, and then get three guys’ relays to states and three girls’ relays. I think that’s very doable this year,” Eby added.

Johnston began his high school athletic career on the Seabreeze basketball team, then switched to swimming his junior year. He is in the AICE program and wanted a sport that would complement his academic focus. He said his specialty is freestyle, and this season he has added the 100-yard race to his repertoire.

“It’s been fun getting into the sport,” he said. “It’s also been fun to be a captain and help some of the kids that have come in with the kind of things I needed when I first started. I’ve been trying to relay that back to them.”

After Bay took over, the practices have gotten a lot harder, Johnston said, but he said it is fun to see the payoff.

“I think today was another test of how consistent we are,” Johnston said. “I feel like we’ve got a team that constantly swims good times. The work is definitely cut out for us, but it’s also paying off.”

EMOTIONAL RIDE FOR GREEN WAVE

Bay also served as swim coach and led curriculum instruction at Father Lopez for five years, until 2015. This is Leslie Jordan’s first season coaching the Green Wave. She took over after longtime coach Robert Klotzbach died on Jan. 6 following an illness.

“Rob was very sick at the end of their season last year,” Jordan said. “It’s been emotional for them. Then, of course, I have my coaching style. I’ve been coaching for a long time, and Rob coached for a long time, and we’re two completely different people, so we have completely different ways. So they’re adjusting. It’s an adjustment for everybody.”

Jordan was a swim coach at The Master’s Academy in Oviedo for eight years. She and her husband moved to Ormond Beach this year. She took the job to keep the team going.


I wanted to lift them up as swimmers and as individuals, and be there for them. The kids are devoted to their school, and they’re devoted to the team, so that was the easy part. The fundamental goal of coaching is teaching them to work hard and do the strokes, but they’re not going to do that if they don’t love it. They have to love it first.”
— LESLIE JORDAN, Father Lopez head swim coach


“I wanted to lift them up as swimmers and as individuals, and be there for them,” she said. “The kids are devoted to their school, and they’re devoted to the team, so that was the easy part. The fundamental goal of coaching is teaching them to work hard and do the strokes, but they’re not going to do that if they don’t love it. They have to love it first.”

The dual meet against Seabreeze was Father Lopez’s first meet of the season. Even though the Green Wave lost, Jordan said she saw nothing but positives. She said it was a chance for her to discover where her swimmers fit best.

“It’s all pros,” she said. “Seabreeze is such a strong team. Their team is heavily stacked with strong, strong swimmers. So going in, my swimmers have to know they’re there for personal growth.

 “But all the personal gains, all of the ‘wow, that kid can actually swim really fast.’ All of those little insights at the dual meets are like chess pieces to see who works best where because the district meet is where the money is. That’s the endgame.”

Seabreeze’s Simpson swam competitively with Hydro for a couple of years and at Seabreeze for the last four, he said. He wants to study medicine at either the University of Florida or Florida State.

He said his high school swim team is made up of so many great people.

“I feel like this is the best group of people, not just for sports, but at this school,” he said. “Pretty much every single one of us is in advanced programs, and all the seniors, including me, are in physics. When we’re going off the block, sometimes we’re talking about physics.”

Bay said all the kids on the swim team are amazing, so it would be hard to name one as the heart and soul of the group.

“They all bring something to the table that’s different, that adds to the community that we have here, which is special,” he said.

 

×

Your free article limit has been reached this month.
Subscribe now for unlimited digital access to our award-winning local news.