The girls of Clarksville High won a 1A-4A state title on two relay wins, while the Magnolia boys won without winning a single event.
Boys Meet
Magnolia High won a tight team battle by 12.5 points without winning a single event. In fact, the team’s only top-3 finishes came in the 200 medley relay, 100 free (Bailey McCook was second in 52.73), 100 breast (McCook was once again second in 1:08.69) and 400 free relay.
Reese Graham of Valley View was the individual headliner, winning four events and helping his 400 free relay break a state record. Graham, Ty Boren, Cade Byrd and Mac Rees went 3:25.40 to win that relay, taking 11 full seconds off the old state record from 2017.
Graham also won the 200 free in 1:47.17 (winning by seven seconds) and 100 fly in 52.99 (coming within two tenths of the state record). Byrd also won the 200 IM in 2:07.70.
Boren, Byrd, Rees and Graham also won the 200 free relay in 1:33.86, coming within a half-second of the state record.
Other event winners:
- Pocahontas High won the 200 medley relay in 1:49.60. Breaststroker Samuel Frazier went on to win the 500 free individually.
- Lamar High’s Roc Webb won the 50 free in 23.42.
- Arkadelphia’s Hayden Harris won the diving event with 196.15 points.
- Jacksonville Lighthouse’s Dan Allee won the 100 free in 50.78.
- Batesville’s Nathan Hernandez was the 100 back champ in 56.24.
- Armorel’s Adam Brogden won the 100 breast in 1:07.65.
Top 5 Teams:
- Magnolia – 246.5
- Batesville – 234
- Valley View – 232
- Pocahontas – 171
- Arkadelphia – 150
Girls Meet
Clarksville’s Hannah Melton won three events to power her team to the 1A-4A state title.
Melton joined Chloe Weathers, Rosemond Wade and Mary Eichenberger to win the 200 medley relay in 2:02.54, blowing out the field by nine seconds. Melton also won the 100 free (57.68) by about two seconds, and then led off the winning 200 free relay. Melton, Ashley Laster, Wade and Weathers were 1:48.70 to win that relay by more than six seconds.
A pair of Haas Hall swimmers from different campuses (and therefore different teams) won dual individual titles. Competing for the Bentonville campus, Hayley Pike won a pair of events: the 200 free in 1:51.15 and the 500 free in 4:51.51. The latter was a state record, breaking her own mark from last year.
Meanwhile, the Fayetteville Haas Hall campus got two wins from Lily DeSpain. She won the 200 IM in 2:07.08 (winning by a crazy 14 seconds) and the 100 breast in 1:06.93.
Pike and the Bentonville group win the 400 free relay in 4:11.75 – a winning margin of almost 20 seconds over DeSpain’s Fayetteville team. Pike led off, followed by Trang Le, Lulu Segura and Ashley Bolding.
Also doubling up on individual wins was Central Arkansas Christian’s Claire Hyatt: she won the 50 free in 24.22 (only .15 off the state record) and 100 back in 58.23. In the latter race, Hyatt broke a two-year-old state record.
Other event winners:
- Haas Hall (Fayetteville)’s Josephine Matalone won diving, scoring 371.20 points.
- Sacred Heart’s Bailey Roscoe won the 100 fly in 59.50.
Top 5 Teams:
- Clarksville – 265
- Magnolia – 246
- Pocahontas – 179
- Haas Hall Bentonville – 178
- Haas Hall Fayetteville – 160
