Cyclones swim to school records and a state qualifying time

Published 2:50 pm Friday, December 2, 2022

The Elizabethton High School Swim Team ended their day Thursday with convincing wins over Avery County and Morristown High Schools.  The Cyclones won every event of the night.  The girl’s relay team of Eva El Helou, Mia Whaley, Cadie Digby, and Cara Carr began the evening by breaking the school’s 23-year-old 200 Medley Relay record with a time of 2:13.00.  They repeated the performance later in the evening in the 200 Freestyle Relay by breaking the school’s 24-year-old record with a time of 2:01.50.

Grace Artz placed first and second with two personal best times in the 200 and 100 Freestyles, bested only by teammate Cadie Digby who also won the 200 Individual Medley with a season’s best time of 2:36.09.  Whaley returned to the water for a win and a personal best time in the 50 Freestyle and then repeated that effort in the 100 Breaststroke later in the evening.  Carr also returned to the water with two personal best times in the 50 Freestyle and 100 Backstroke events, cutting over two seconds in the shortest race in the lineup. Sophia James followed suit, cutting an astounding 10.31 seconds from her time just a little over two weeks ago in the 100 Butterfly. Digby also dropped over four seconds in the 100 Freestyle with a time of 1:00.43, just .04 seconds shy of the state qualifying time, while teammate Artz improved over 3 seconds with a personal best time of 1:13.16.  El Helou also swam a personal best time in the 100 Backstroke by cutting over eleven seconds from her previous time, while teammate Jasey Hyatt dropped over four seconds in the event.  Ella Edmondson impressed by improving her 100 Breaststroke time by almost six seconds.  Some of the most significant improvements came from junior Tori Frakes in her 50 and 100 freestyles when she dropped 10.20 and 20.38 seconds consecutively from her times just last week.  There were several first-time swims for the Cyclone girls with Megan Royce winning the 500 freestyle and Emersen Jetmore placing second in the event.  Junior Tyanna Hitechew swam the 100 backstroke for the first time, while Layla El Helou and Hyatt swam their inaugural 200 Freestyle.

On the boys’ side, RJ Brewer swam the 200 Freestyle for the first time, winning the event with a time of 2:07.50.  Liam Cannon followed by winning the 200 Individual Medley, with teammate Raven Rogers placing second.  Just a short time later, Cannon won again in the 50 Freestyle with a personal best time of 29.37, while teammate John Odom dropped an impressive 5.06 seconds from his time in the event.  Morgan Roszel followed suit with wins in the 100 Butterfly and 100 Backstroke, coming just thirteen-hundredths of a second from the state qualifying time in the latter.  Kody Broussard also came close to qualifying for the state competition with a time just 85 hundredths of a second shy in the 100 Freestyle.  Odom impressed again when he cut another 6.78 seconds in the event to place fifth.  Broussard returned to the water for a win and state qualifying time of 5:33.50 in the 500 Freestyle, while teammates Rogers and Jacob Frickel placed second and fourth consecutively.  Brewer won his second event of the evening, the 100 Breaststroke, in a personal best time next to Frickel, who swam the event for his first time.

The Cyclones compete next at the Kingsport Aquatic Center on Saturday in the East Tennessee Classic, hosted by Dobyn’s Bennett, against thirteen other teams.  Entry to the meet is $6 and it begins at 8:45 am.