Going into the regional meet on Jan. 31, Tri-County Early College had Fern Crayton with two individual events (200-meter & 500m freestyles) and Sophia Evans with one event (200m freestyle).
The Tri-County girls also qualified three relays: 200m medley, 200m free, and 400m free relays. The Tri-County boys qualified the same three relays.
Crayton qualified for the state meet in both of her events, while setting a new school record swimming the 500m free in 5:59.72. Not to be outdone, the boys 200m free relay of Nathan Downs, Nathan Abejam, William Boyd and Griffin Criteau-Schreiner set a new school record in 1:55.77.
Also setting a new school record in the 400m free relay was the quartet of Mason Gaither, Nathan Abejam, William Boyd and Griffin Criteau-Schreiner, swimming a 4:27.45.
“Yes, records are made to be broken; however, what I am most proud of is we had 27 opportunities to swim three individual events and 24 relay splits, and 27 best times/personal records were swum. A 100% performance each swimmer achieved,” head coach Frank Bachteler said.
Also swimming in the regional meet were MaryLynn Hulsey, Iris Diaz-Menchu, Tori Jimenez, Tina Trigueros, Jenni Ramiver-Jaime and Elias Diaz-Menchu.
At the state meet, Crayton lowered her 200m free time by three seconds to finish 21st, then lowered her 500m free time by nine seconds to finish 19th with a time of 5:51.18. Crayton’s time is the second-fastest 500m freestyle by any Cherokee County girl, behind only Murphy’s M. Maxwell’s in 2001 at 5:36.00.
“Since 90% of the swimmers at the regional and state meets are year-round swimmers, it is amazing how well our Cherokee County swimmers compete,” Bachteler said.
This season, Murphy did not make the regional meet.