Hobbton, Midway and Clinton High School swimming wrapped up a successful regular season last week.
The Hobbton High School Women’s swim team of four completed a remarkable season just in its second year of existence. Lead by senior captain Marcy McLamb, the team scored a combined season total of 623 points. More points than some larger programs. This is particularly impressive when considering rookie swimmers Ashlyn Johnson, Kaylee Matthews and Sarah Price could not swim two lengths of the pool at the first day of practice. Both Marcy and Sarah would go on to have two second place finishes for their team in regional competition. Marcy has been accepted to virtually every college she has applied to including UNC Chapel Hill, NC State, UNC Wilmington, and Washington University in D.C.
Midway High School Women are captained by a sophomore, Mamie Core. She and Savannah Brinkley are the dynamic scoring duo of this team — Mamie with one win and Savannah with two wins during the season. New comers Sierra Boggs, Cashie Naylor, and Rachel Pope also were similar to the Hobbton rookies. They took it one step further by helping Mamie and Savannah in relay times that have attained consideration times for the State East Regional Championship meet on Feb. 1 Mamie has an automatic berth in the 100 yard breaststroke for the championship meet with a team best time of 1:21.96 (time reporting format = minutes:seconds.hundreths). Savannah has consideration times in the 100 backstroke (1:21.23) and 200 individual medley (2:58.50).
Midway’s Men have two track stars who are doubling up on winter sports as swimmers as well, sophomore Alex Boggs and senior Caleb Sanders. Working with sophomore Andrew Johnson, juniors Justin Jones and captain Daniel Core this five-some have enabled Midway to have two relays teams race well below the consideration times for the State East Regional Championship. Andrew has consideration times as well in the 50 free (27.15) and 100 free (1:02.35). Daniel currently holds school records in all events he has swam and has automatically qualified for the championship season with a 100 freestyle time of 55.64 and 100 breast stroke time of 1:07.75.
Both the Clinton High School women and men continue to dominate Sampson County swimming and remain one of the best 2A schools in the East.
Two freshman, Alaina Capps and Dorothy Lane, have each contributed two second place finishes this season, remarkable in that Alaina couldn’t swim at the start of the season and Dorothy last swam recreationally in elementary school. Claire Fox and Lauren Miller, both sophomores, made the school’s state team for their first time captained by senior Lexi Valenti and junior Lillie Turlington. Lexi has a consideration time in the 100 yard breaststroke (1:32.13). Lillie remains the team’s fastest freestyler in school history owning all school records in the 50, 100, 200 and 500 yard freestyle events (her times are 26.79, 1:02.97, 2:15.78, and 5:51.00 respectively). She has the most wins of any swimmer male or female from Sampson County at 10 first place finishes. She has automatic qualifying times in every event she has swum this year for the state championship rounds. Not far behind is junior Darby Taylor with six season wins who holds the school record in the 100 yard breaststroke at 1:19.66 also an automatic time. Sophomore sensation Elizabeth Tsao also has six wins with an automatic time in the 50 freestyle with a time of 27.21 seconds. Gracin Palmer is a dual sports star sophomore who has a verbal commitment to play division I soccer at Ohio State also has an automatic time of 27.77 seconds.
These four young women (Darby, Elizabeth, Lillie and Gracin) combined make for a dangerously fast sprint relay team. However at the East Central Conference Championships Lillie had to leave early for a youth leadership conference. Sophomore Grace Reagan stepped into Lillie’s relay spot and absolutely raced out of her mind. Prior to the start of the season Grace had not broken the vaunted 30 second barrier in the 50 yard freestyle. She did it at a meet just prior to the conference championship with a consideration time of 29.87 seconds. She posted a personal relay best split of 28.99 which was just enough for the Clinton women to win the 200 yard freestyle relay and All Conference honors (pictured). Grace now joins the school’s state swim team program. The team has two relays with automatic berths to States.
For the Clinton men, two new members played important roles this season: junior Jacob Blount and freshman soccer extraordinaire Spell Carr. Both provided multiple second place finishes this year. Jacob transferred to Clinton City Schools this year. He made an immediate impact as a utility swimmer as he has mastered all four strokes (freestyle, butterfly, breaststroke, and backstroke). Spell is a natural athlete who learned all strokes quickly. Coach Yang could slide either of them into any event where they were needed. Wrapping up at least two wins each this season included: seniors Ryan Taylor (cpt.), Weston Locklear, Collin Johnson and Enrique Elizondo; Juniors Alex Purcell and Hayden Lanier; and sophomore Aaron Viser. Pivotal second place finishes also came from junior Austin Williams.
The work horses of the men’s program have been from senior captain Casey Yang with six wins all in the grueling 500 yard freestyle distance event (5:44.61, school record), and seven wins by junior Freddy Bath in the sprint 50 and 100 yard freestyle (23.42 and 52.85 respectively, both school records). It was this impressive sprint speed that won Freddy first place at the East Central Conference Swim Championships on Friday January 25th for All Conference honors (picture).
The state team is comprised of those with consideration times (Weston – 100 breaststroke 1:21.61, Enrique - 100 free 1:03.83 and 100 fly 1:16.51, Alex – 50 free 25.25 and 100 free 58.48, Aaron – 100 fly 1:13.45, and Austin - 100 fly 1:15.70) and those with automatic times (Ryan – 50 free 24.42, Casey and Freddy). Rounding out the state swim team are two juniors: rookie Will Reagan (consideration 50 free 26.22) and returning veteran Brennan Masterson. All three of the relay teams have automatically qualified for States.
Sampson County also now has a home school swim team consisting of members Elizabeth Johnson, Joseph Johnson, Adam Johnson, Joel Bradshaw and Alec Linton. The participated in their first regional meet last week. Elizabeth won the 200 IM (2:46.85) and 100 backstroke (1:18.18). Joel won the 100 backstroke (1:11.90).
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