Local teams fare well in Region III swim meet

HARRISONBURG — At Saturday’s Region III swimming championships hosted by JMU, the boys 200-yard medley and 200-free relays were excellent indicators of how the team competition would pan out.

Two-time defending champion Jefferson Forest’s boys shaved fractions of a second off their best times in both, but finished second to Turner Ashby, while teams from E.C. Glass hacked two and a half seconds off their PRs in each to place third in both.

TA’s boys and Spotswood’s girls, the two hometown teams, claimed first-place trophies, but Lynchburg-area schools fared well, with JF (80), Glass (76) and Brookville (72) finishing in a tight race for second, third and fourth, respectively, in the boys meet.

“I think we did better than expected,” said Glass junior Holden Easterbrook, who led off the 200-medley relay with a split time of 27.1 in the backstroke and later dropped more than two seconds off his seed time to win the 100 back in 58.82.

“We were closer to second than fourth,” added teammate Bo Quel, who swam the breast leg of the 200 medley, which was third in 1:44.51, just 0.06 seconds behind JF’s tandem.

Glass sophomore Blake Proffitt, who won the 100 breast in 1:02.52, and Brookville’s Logan White, who won the 100 butterfly in 54.76, forced JF senior Caleb Williams to swim his fastest times to win the 200 IM (2:00.35) and 500 free (4:49.70), respectively. Proffitt was second in the 200 IM in 2:01.96 and White swimmer-up in the 500 free in 4:50.09.

“Both gave me a good run for my money,” said Williams, who was named the Region III boys swimmer of the year. “They both swam their best times and definitely pushed me. Blake was gunning for me and I had to outsprint him [in the freestyle leg of the 200 IM].”

Brookville stacked its 400 free relay with Evan Mitchell, White, Patrick Regan and Bricesen Burton to win in 3:27.70 and bump JF’s tandem from qualifying for the state meet, as its girls team failed to do, also finishing fourth.

Burton placed third in both the 50 (22.71) and the 100 free (50.17), two hundredths of a second behind Staunton River senior Jordan Dehli. JF’s Blake Nowakowski finished first in 48.81, pushing ahead with extremely smooth flip turns.

Zak Dehli edged his older brother Jordan by one-hundredth of a second in the 50 free to win in 22.57.

“Zak really wants to win states and I really want to beat Zak,” Jordan Dehli said.

“It’s going to be a really close event [at next Friday and Saturday’s Group AA state meet at Christiansburg],” added Zak Dehli, who won the Blue Ridge District meet in 22.15.

On the girls side, the Bees (86), Cavaliers (52) and Hilltoppers (47½) came in third, fourth and fifth, respectively, in the final team totals.

Brookville senior and ODU signee Amber Wingfield won the 100 butterfly in 58.38, beating JF senior and Radford recruit Sarah Fredericksen (third in 59.19). Wingfield also placed second in the 100 breast in 1:08.13, anchored the runner-up 400 free relay (3:51.46) and swam the second leg of the third-place 200 free relay (1:44.60) to pace the Bees.

“I’m pretty broken down right now,” said Wingfield, who also swims for the Lynchburg YMCA team. “Hopefully, with a little more rest next week, I’ll be able to swim my best times at the state meet.”

In the 500 free, Spotswood freshman Jessie Arnold, the Region III girls swimmer of the year, held off Fredericksen, who dropped eight seconds, 5:09.30 to 5:13.92.

Brookville freshman Ashley Mauzy was a double winner in the 200 IM (2:15.48) and the 100 back (1:00.08).

“Ashley’s really a talented swimmer,” Wingfield said. “It’ll be exciting to see what she does over the next few years.”