Western Albemarle’s girls and boys swim and dive teams made quick work of last week’s Conference 29 championships, with the Warriors sweeping both titles.
The Warriors’ boys rolled to a 216-111 win over Monticello while the girls held off Turner Ashby 190.5 to 163 despite a number of key swimmers for the Warriors sitting out the meet on both the boys and girls side.
The Warriors won both the 200-medley relay and 400-free relays while grabbing third in the 200-free relay. On top of the strong relay performance, Wilson Brown won in the dive, August Lamb won in the 200 IM, Evan Sposato took the 400-free and Matt Mandell won the 100-breast.
From there, the Warriors’ depth carried the day, with Zach Bowen taking third in the 200 free while Ryan Boyce grabbed fifth in the 200 free. Behind Lamb in the IM, Jack Vaughn took third and Sposato finished fourth. A.J. Donnovan was second in the 50-free and Johnny Riordan took fourth.
Jason Heilman finished second in the 100-free, Jake Paulson third and Trevor Phelps fifth. Boyce took third in the 400-free while Ian O’Donnell took fifth. Jake Paulson grabbed fourth in the 100-back. Lamb and Vaughn combined with Mandell’s win to sew up a 1-2-3 sweep in the 100-breast.
Brian Young’s double victory outing highlighted the Monticello boys’ second place finish, with Young winning the 50 and 100 freestyle events. Bracken Eddy nearly equalled Young’s performance, taking second in the 200 IM before winning the 100-backstroke. Owen Linville also had a strong day, taking fourth place in the 200 and 400-freestyle races.
Peter Tegethoff took third in the 100-fly while Teddy Leeds-Armstrong finished fourth in the 100-free. The Mustangs’ 200-freestyle relay team picked up a win and the 200-medley squad finished second.
On the girls side, Western got the job done like the boys did without many of their top swimmers in the lineup. McKenna Riley helped make that happen, winning both the 200-free ad 100-back, with the 200-free creating the rarely seen tie at 2:21.37 with Western teammate Meredith Martin. Martin also finished second in the 400-free.
The Warriors’ relay teams grabbed two runner-up finishes in the 200-medley and 400-free while taking fourth in the 200-free. Along with a host of top five finishes, that was enough to push Western over the top.
Claire O’Connell finished fifth in the 200 IM and Nell Fountain took fourth in the 50 free. Jesse Dugan finished second in the 100-fly while Teryn Ratcliffe and Clare O’Connell took fourth and fifth. Caroline Riordan clocked a fourth place in the 100 free while Claudia James took fifth and, Julia Perrone snagged fifth in the 400-free. Dugan and Nell Fountain took third and fourth behind Riley’s victory in the 100-back. Catherine Adams finished fifth in the 100 breast.
Monticello’s girls had a strong performance in the conference meet as well. Ava Burnsed took second in the 50 free and also was the runnerup in the 100 free. Julie Scholes took fourth in the 200 IM and fifth in the 100 back. Amanda Mincer finished third in the 100-fly and Caroline Hallowell took fourth in the 400 free
Monticello’s girls also took third place in the 200 free relay and third in the 400 free relay.
Fluvanna County also had some standouts, led by Caylyn McNaul’s victories in the 400-free and 100-breaststroke. The Flucos’ girls medley relay team finishing third while the 200-free relay took second. Stephanie Nardone finished third in the 200 IM while Lydia Reynard won the dive while Anna Hurdle took third.
On the boys side, Michael DiFazio finished fourth in the boys 100-fly and second in the 100 back.
All three programs’ qualifiers advance to the Region 3A West championships next week.
