LAURINBURG — For the final time this winter, the Richmond Senior High School boys’ and girls’ swimming teams met for a regular season meet at O’Herron Pool on the campus of St. Andrews University.
Both the Raiders and Lady Raiders would pull off fourth-place finishes, collecting 93 and 57 points, respectively. It was the second-best finish for the Raiders, who earned a third-place finish in the second meet back in December, while the Lady Raiders tied their best finish of the season.
Winning the 24-event meet on the boys’ side was Pinecrest High School, which collected 279 points. Jack Britt High School’s girls’ team took top honors with 269 points. The Lady Raiders edged Purnell Swett High School by four points, while the Raiders had a comfortable 26-point cushion over the Rams.
Like they have the last couple of meets, Richmond’s teams relied heavily on the relay events to earn a majority of their points. The boys’ team started the night with a fourth-place finish in the 200-yard medley relay, collecting its first 22 points.
The regular foursome of Eric Singleton (backstroke), Thomas Barbee (breaststroke), Dakota Locklear (butterfly) and Robbie Baxley (freestyle) completed the race in 2:41.05.
In the 200-yard freestyle relay, the same four Raiders took fourth place and 20 more points behind a time of 2:00.50. Baxley, Singleton, Locklear and Early College sophomore Wil Mabe finished the relay events with a fourth-place mark in the 400-yard freestyle relay, posting a time of 5:03.28 (22 points), which was 52 seconds faster than last week’s time.
The Lady Raiders competed in just the 200-yard freestyle relay, swimming to a fourth-place time of 2:26.82 seconds. Leading off was O’cean Bennett, followed by Ariel Spooner and Kayla Hawkins, as Maylyn Wallace anchored the event to collect 22 points.
Wallace, who is the reigning Official Richmond County Female Athlete of the Week, took third overall in the individual 50-yard freestyle. Her time of 32.08 seconds was a tick slower than her personal record set last week, but she placed third for the second week in a row to earn the Lady Raiders 12 more points.
Locklear, also the Official Richmond County Male Athlete of the Week, and Baxley would both swim the 50-yard freestyle and combine for 15 more points. In his heat, Locklear went the two lengths in 26.61 seconds, just 0.19 seconds off his personal record, for 11 points. Baxley placed 10th (30.50 seconds) for four points.
The sophomore duo of Bennett and Kassie Smith hit the pool for the 100-yard individual freestyle, taking 9th and 10th, respectively. Bennett hit the end wall in 1:27.23 for four points, and Smith followed her with a time of 1:33.75 for three more points.
Mabe and Jonathan Alicea also combined for seven points in the event for the boys, swimming the four lengths in 1:24.43 (9th place) and 1:30.05 (10th place). Spooner was the lone Lady Raider in the 100-yard backstroke, taking sixth overall with a time of 1:41.67 for an additional nine points.
Battling in the 100-yard breaststroke, sophomore Ellie Buck won her heat and finished sixth in the field of 10 swimmers (1:48.00), contributing 10 more points for the Lady Raiders. Barbee’s time of 1:37.68 in the boys’ race took seventh place and seven more points.
The Richmond swim teams will now return to the practice pool for one final stretch of preparation for the SAC championship meet, which will be held on Saturday, Jan. 25, at St. Andrews.
