LAURINBURG — Making the most of its much-anticipated season opener, the Richmond Senior High School boys’ swimming team impressed on Wednesday.
Competing against the six other programs in the Sandhills Athletic Conference, the Raiders swam their way to a third-place finish with 38.5 points.
Union Pines High School (307 points) and Pinecrest High School (241.5 points) finished first and second, respectively. The Raiders earned third by defeating Southern Lee High School by 10.5 points.
The SAC season was delayed over a month due to several issues with pool conditions at St. Andrews University.
The lack of competitions, and limited practice time over the holiday break, made Wednesday’s opener tougher, assistant coach Andy Shuler noted.
This season, the Raiders have five swimmers, who competed in four different events. Richmond earned points in three of those contests.
Opening the event in the 200-yard medley relay, the Raiders clocked in a 2:48.63, but were disqualified for a stroke infraction.
Sophomore Michael Barbee swam the backstroke, freshman Brandon Thrower competed in the breaststroke, junior Brent Humann swam the butterfly and freshman Conner Thrower anchored it with the freestyle.
Humann, the most veteran swimmer on the team, collected 20.5 points for the Raiders. His best individual finish was in the 500-yard race, which was the first time he competed in that event.
Taking fourth overall, Humann swam the five laps in 8:09.37 and earned 11 points.
One of three Raiders to swim in the 50-yard freestyle, Humann finished tied for sixth place with Colton MacCachran of Pinecrest. Both swimmers hit the wall in 30.34 seconds. Splitting the points, each swimmer was awarded 9.50 points.
Sophomore Gavin Applewhite also swam in the 50-yard free, clocking in at 39.29 seconds but didn’t place.
Registering the remainder of Richmond’s 18 points was Brandon Thrower in the open 50 and 100-yard freestyle events.
Making a splash in his high school debut, Brandon Thrower added 11 points in the 100-yard race with a fourth-place mark of 1:14.30. He followed that with a 10th-place finish in the 50-yard free (32.02 seconds) for seven more points.
The Raiders will look to continue to improve in their second SAC meet next Wednesday at St. Andrews. Events will begin at 6:15 p.m.
