COLUMBIA – The Riverside Warriors pulled off the double winning the 4A boys state swim title, just two days after their girls’ team won.
Riverside boys won with 480 points on Saturday, Oct 10th at the University of South Carolina natatorium. The Nation Ford Falcons boys were second overall with 327 points, and the Catawba Ridge Copperheads were third with 255 points.
The two local schools flip-flopped as the Catawba Ridge girls finished second in the state on Thursday with the Nation Ford girls finishing fourth. The second-place finish for Nation Ford was pretty big considering that they only had eight swimmers at the meet.
“It’s really exciting,” said Nation Ford head coach Alyssa McAllister, who was emotional after the meet. “To achieve this with only eight boys is an incredible achievement.”
Nation Ford started with a second-place finish in the 200-yard medley relay in 1:38, two seconds behind winners Riverside.
Jude Cross picked up a fourth-place finish in the 200-yard freestyle in 1:48 for the Falcons.
Levi Vaden added another top five for the Falcons with a third-place finish in the 50-yard freestyle in 21.31, just 0.08 seconds out of first. Vaden also finished third in the 100-yard freestyle in 47.13.
The Falcons’ Gray Reiger finished second in the 100-yard butterfly by 0.16 behind Lancaster’s Micah Frank in 51.36. Nation Ford’s Noah Harris was third in the event in 53.25.
Reiger came back in strong fashion to win the 500-yard freestyle in convincing fashion with a time of 4:40. Reiger was third in the event last year but worked on things over the past year. Nicho Giraldo was third in the event in 4:59, with Cross being fourth in 5:02.
“I really worked on my stroke,” he said. “I went to a specialist.”
Nation Ford, featuring Reiger and Harris, then turned around to win the 200-yard freestyle, along with Cross and Vaden. Reiger said doing the longest race and then turning around and having to do a leg portion of a sprint, wasn’t as hard as it might seem.
“I was built for it,” he said. “You have to go into the race (200-yard freestyle) with your heart rate high.”
The championship went into a 20-minute weather delay, and once it resumed, Harris finished fourth for the Falcons in the 100-yard backstroke in 53.48.
Catawba Ridge finished third in the 400-yard freestyle relay for their highest finish in the meet with a time of 3:28.
Mickey Tong finished seventh in the 100-yard breaststroke in 1:04 and Brewer Carruthers finished seventh in the 500-yard freestyle in 5:13 for the Copperheads. Asher Craig finished sixth in the 100-yard freestyle in 50.33 as the highest finisher in individual events for the Copperheads.
Fort Mill boys finish second in 5A meet
The Fort Mill boys swim team had a lot to follow with the Lady Jackets winning the state title over the Eastside Eagles on Thursday, Oct. 8.
Fort Mill came into the meet with just 10 swimmers, while a team like Eastside had about 20. Eastside won with 672 points, as Fort Mill was second with 270 and Ashley Ridge was third with 256.5.
“This came out of nowhere,” said Fort Mill
head coach Cindy Van Buskirk. “We had amazing swims. We knew Eastside was powerful, but our guys swam for each other. I am proud of all of them.”
The Jackets finished fifth in the 200-yard medley relay in 1:39 to open the meet, which helped tremendously despite Eastside winning.
Parker Hightower, who was part of the relay team, came back to finish fourth in the 200-yard individual medley in 1:58. Hightower also finished third in the 100-yard butterfly in 52.77, just 0.74 seconds out of first.
Tyler Smith finished fourth in the 100-yard backstroke in 53.26 for Fort Mill and Wyatt Matz finished fifth for the Jackets in the 500-yard freestyle in 4:50 to keep them competitive.
Fort Mill finished fourth in the 400-yard freestyle relay to end the meet.
Mac Banks: mac@fortmillprepsports.com, @fortprep
