Tommy Martin and his friends saved their best highlights for last at the Mississippi Swimming Inc. Long Course State Championships.

Martin won the boys’ 13-14-year-olds’ state championship in the 50-meter freestyle Sunday with a time of 26.72 seconds — nearly a second better than runner-up Kenny Thomas of the Mississippi Makos. Martin’s winning time was sixth-tenths of a second faster than his time in the preliminary rounds, which had earned him the top seed for the final.

“He crushed it,” said Vicksburg Swim Association coach Mathew Mixon. “In such a short sprint event, that’s a big deal to drop that much time. In the 50, even if it’s a hundredth of a second it’s a big deal. There were a few people swimming 27s, and he was the only one who got into that 26 range.”

Martin also teamed with Matthew Copes, Andrew Fields and Adam Eckstein to win the 13-14-year-olds’ 400-meter freestyle relay championship on Sunday morning in Tupelo, and they won the 200-meter medley relay title on Saturday.

The same relay team finished second in the 200-meter freestyle event on Saturday, and provided plenty of other brilliant moments for the VSA at the biggest club meet of the summer season.

Copes finished fourth in both the 1,500- and 50-meter freestyle. He lowered his time in the 1,500 by 46 seconds and qualified for the USA Swimming Age Group Zone Meet in Cary, N.C., that runs from Aug. 2-6.

In the final event of the meet, the 400 freestyle, Copes finished second.

“People knew a little bit about Tommy. Matthew was more the one that came out of nowhere,” Mixon said. “It was a great meet for both of them.”

Martin added a fourth state title in the 100-meter butterfly — Copes was third — and was second in the 100-meter breaststroke. Martin clocked a time of 1 minute, 7.91 seconds in the butterfly to edge Max Brooks of Sunkist Swimming by .06 seconds. Copes finished in 1:08.25.

Fields was fourth in the 100 breaststroke, while their combined efforts led to Mixon being selected the 2016 Age Group Coach of the Year.

In all, the VSA won four state championships and had a number of swimmers reach the finals.

The VSA’s “Killer Whales” finished seventh out of 12 teams, but the top five were all large clubs with dozens of swimmers able to rack up points in each event. The VSA team had only 21 swimmers — up from 14 last year — and 55 entries.

“Our quality and our depth is growing,” Mixon said. “We’re still growing, and that’s something that’s positive to look at as a coach. We’re at a peak, but we’re not going back. We’ve got a lot of people who are still going to be in the program for another four or five years.”

Mixon added that his Coach of the Year award was the culmination of several years of work. The quartet that dominated the 13-14-year-olds’ boys’ meet has been working with Mixon in the VSA program for about five years, and the program has been on a steady rise since he took over.

“Since it’s a peer-elected award, it means a lot to me,” Mixon said. “I want to be humble about it, but I worked hard and it is rewarding to have people see your progress. It’s always nice, once in a while, to have someone say ‘Good job.’”