MORGANTOWN — Eleven schools met in Morgantown on Saturday afternoon for the second of two Mohawk Invite annual swim meets of the season held in the WVU swimming and diving facility at Mylan Aquatic Center.
With the regional and state swim meets just around the corner, the competitive field the Mohawk Invite provides gives teams a good chance to assess their times and where they want to improve heading into the most important meets of the year.
“Having these two meets allows us to experience championship-like swimming and lets us see some teams we may not see otherwise,” MHS coach Eric Householder said. “With OVACs and regionals approaching, our swimmers can show that they can swim and compete with any team in the state.”
In the girl’s standings, Morgantown High School finished in the top spot with a team total of 223, with Brooke High School following in second with a score of 206.
MHS took the top spot in three girls’ races in the 200-yard medley relay, 200-yard IM, and the 500-yard freestyle. Senior Delaney Householder, a WVU signee, was the swimmer to take first place in the individual events. Her time of 2:18.87 in the 200 IM was 11 seconds ahead of the second-place swimmer, while she was 25 seconds ahead of her younger sister, Avery Householder, in the 500 freestyle race with a time of 5:25.41. The younger Householder took second in 5:57.88.
“Relays are very important at big meets,” Coach Householder (Dad) said. “That’s an area we want to continue to improve on. With a few tweaks, I think we can be hopeful to place a few swimmers and relays at states and compete for a title.”
The UHS Hawks finished in fifth place in the girls’ standings with a team total of 122.
UHS finished third in the 200-yard medley relay with a time of 2:14.12. Maddie McCoy had a strong showing individually for the Hawks, finishing fourth in the 50-yard freestyle, second in the 100-yard freestyle, and anchoring the 200-yard freestyle relay race to a second-place finish.
“We don’t have the chance to swim against some of these teams before the state meet,” UHS coach Nicolle Lewis said. “As we go forward I would like to see my swimmers drop time and as we are starting to figure out what we want to swim at states. I’m hopeful that we will have relays and individuals at the state meet.”
On the boys’ side, MHS finished fourth with a team total of 179, with UHS tallying 95 points for sixth place on the day.
Christian Hammer took the top spot in the 200-yard freestyle with a time of 1:52.73, while his brother, Daniel, took second in the 50-yard freestyle with a time of 23.49. The pair also finished second and third, respectively, in the 100-yard freestyle race.
Teams will now look ahead to the next few weeks of the season to prepare for regionals on Feb.3 where they will attempt to qualify for the state meet, held on Feb. 15-16 at Mylan Aquatic Center.
