When the Carrollton Bluefins hit the water this weekend for the Georgia Recreation and Parks Association (GRPA) State Championships, the meet will have a different look than it has in the past.

For the first time in seven years, the championship meet will take place in Augusta rather than the metro Atlanta area, and for that reason some of the strongest teams from Atlanta won’t be there.

The goal for the Bluefins, however, remains the same. Bluefins coach David Weeks is hopeful that 50-60 percent of the 58 swimmers from the team competing at the Augusta Aquatics Center on Friday and Saturday will win medals.

“We’re excited about the weekend. I think we’ll do fairly well,” Weeks said. “The key is for everyone to come home and swim a little bit faster. All swim meets are the same, you’re trying to swim the best time. Here, the competition is a little bit better, so you add a little more pressure and you see what you can swim when the pressure’s on.”

There will be more than 800 swimmers from across Georgia competing. All of the swimmers qualified with a top-three finish in an individual or team medley event during districts, which took place at various locations around the state July 7.

Swimmers 10-and-under will race Friday and those 11-and-older will swim Saturday. On both days, preliminaries will start at 9 a.m. with the top eight in each race advancing to the finals, which will start at approximately 4 p.m. The top eight swimmers all win a medal.

With so many people crammed into the pool area, Weeks said it will be crowded and hot.

“The key is to keep your cool and perform to the best of your ability,” Weeks said. “If you get out of your mental reign, you can fall from second to ninth and 10th in a hurry. And ninth and 10th get to watch the final sessions.”

The Bluefins will only have one swimmer in the 10-and-under category competing in the same age bracket as last year, Cassie Griffin, who finished fourth in the 25-freestyle and 50-freestyle in the 7-8 girls bracket.

Weeks said he expects the 11-12 girls relay team of Kelly Fazio, Kate Fazio, Carolyn Ives and Hannah Sprinkle to do well considering it had a strong showing at the 14-and-under USA Championships this past weekend.

This will be the final GRPA meet for April Dickerson and Kent Lawrence, both of Carrollton, and Jason Weeks, who is from Coweta County. All three are 18 and the GRPA doesn’t allow swimmers over 18 to compete.

Dickerson won both the breaststroke and intermedley at the State Championships last year, but she'll face tough competition in both of those races this year as she'll be racing against a different national-level swimmer from the Southern Crescent Aquatics team in each of those races.

With two of the state’s strongest teams, Fulton County and Gwinnett County, not sending swimmers to the state championships this year, Weeks said it’s difficult to predict just how competitive and fast the meet will be.

“It’s really fast (in Atlanta) because all your Atlanta people are going to go. It’s in their backyard,” Weeks said. “There’s no way of knowing until we get there just how fast the meet will be.”

Since it’s an individual meet, team scores aren’t officially kept.

“With individuals, you try to keep it in perspective. It’s kids trying to improve individually,” Weeks said. “It’s about proving yourself and putting yourself in a different situation and seeing if you can perform even better. That’s the key to it. That’s what I want to see them do.”