LAURINBURG — For the second meet in a row, the Richmond Senior High School girls’ swimming team placed fifth overall Wednesday.
Back in the pool for the second time this season, and in the first Sandhills Athletic Conference meet in two weeks, the Lady Raiders nearly put up an identical score to its season opener.
Competing against other SAC teams at St. Andrews University, the Lady Raiders’ fifth-place finish was the result of 52 points across four events.
Winning the meet was Union Pines High School with 292 points, followed by second-place Pinecrest High School (271 points). Also finishing ahead of Richmond were Scotland (91 points) and Hoke County (72 points) high schools.
Taking sixth and seventh place, respectively, were Lee County (32 points) and Southern Lee (13 points) high schools.
“We had another good outing this week, especially considering we hadn’t competed in two weeks,” head coach Ashleigh Buie said. “All the girls who swam did a good job working on their techniques and definitely showed improvement.
“We are still continuing to mix things up to see which swimmers are best qualified to swim in certain events. The more relays we can swim in, the more points we’re able to get. This is a process that I think will benefit us in future meets.”
The Lady Raiders swam in one relay Wednesday — the 200-yard freestyle event — and racked up 24 points with a third-place finish.
The four swimmers combined for a season-best time of 2:20.58, which was 9.11 seconds faster than their week one time. Swimming the relay were senior Alivia Webb, sophomore Natalie Richardson, senior Samantha Barnes and senior anchor Jamison Hubbard.
Five Lady Raiders also picked up points across several other events, led by Hubbard and senior Mascha Theijs’ nine points apiece.
Both earned sixth place overall in her respective event. Hubbard set a season-best time in the 50-yard freestyle, hitting the wall in 32.93 seconds, a total of 0.77 seconds faster than her time two weeks ago.
Theijs swam in the 100-yard breaststroke for the first time in her career and clocked in at 1:53.64.
Barnes and fellow senior Nelly Cadena were next on the scoresheet with four individual points each.
Making her season debut, Barnes was ninth overall in the open 50-yard swim with a time of 35.33 seconds.
Cadena, a middle distance swimmer for Richmond, went with the 100-yard freestyle this week, her first attempt at the event, and also took ninth place (1:27.38).
Richmond’s final points were contributed by sophomore Lillian Hill in the 100-yard freestyle. She completed the two laps in the pool in 1:36.58 for 12th place and two points.
The next SAC meet for the Lady Raiders will be next Wednesday at St. Andrews. The first event will start at 6 p.m.
