MORGANTOWN — A Dec. 18 tri-swim meet, at the WVU Natatorium, saw the Morgantown High girls’ team capture a first-place tie, while Weir took the team title in the boys’ meet.
The MHS girls’ and the Red Riders split first with a score of 364, while the Hawks finished at 319.
For the boys, Weir scored 376, followed by MHS at 352 and UHS at 260.
MHS was successful in placing first in nine of the 22 events and Mohigan’s coach Matt Jernigan was very happy with his team’s performance despite having to play musical chairs with a few swimmers due to injury and illness.
“Tonight was a special meet because we were limited so I tried to spread people out through different events to keep things going,” he said. “I shuffled around a lot bodies and replaced them with a lot of underclassman and they still stepped up and were phenomenal.”
For the MHS girls, Abigail Riggs led the way with three of her team’s top finishes that included the 200-yard medley relay with fellow senior Abby Voorhees and sophomores McKenna Moore and Riley Pierce. Riggs also came in first in the 200- and 500-yard freestyle.
Voorhees, Moore and Pierce also captured the 200-yard freestyle relay with senior Nicole Hatton. Moore also finished first in the 100-yard butterfly, while Pierce took the 200-yard individual medley.
For the Mohigan boys, sophomores Spencer Redelman, Thomas Carter, Carson Gresak and freshman Gavin Fragale placed first in the 200-yard medley relay.
University High coach Joanna White was also pleased with her team and talked about how a smaller meet can have its advantages for the future.
“As a whole, I think we did what we came to do,” White said. “We’re always looking to improve our times which we did and individually we had a good amount of first place finishes. The nice thing about a small meet like this is it lets us look at different techniques and things we need to be working on. We’re able to move some people around and see where we need to work.”
The Hawks saw first-place finishes from Junior Jacqueline McCutchan in the 50-yard freestyle and the 100-yard backstroke; senior Griffin Nordstrom in the 200-yard individual medley; freshman Mia Rice in the 100-yard breaststroke; junior Nathan Mizener in the 50-yard freestyle and sophomores Sidney Robinson, Zeriel Wong, Emma Kitzmiller and freshman Elizabeth Warner in the 400-yard freestyle relay.
Morgantown and University will next compete in another tri-meet with John Marshall, on January 4.
