GCHS swim team takes third place at Carbon meet
by Jeff Richards
Contributing Writer
Jan 16, 2014 | 861 views | 0 0 comments | 2 2 recommendations | email to a friend | print
Duncan Reidhead competes in the 200-yard individual medley during a swim meet in Price on Jan. 10. Photo by John Knowles
Duncan Reidhead competes in the 200-yard individual medley during a swim meet in Price on Jan. 10. Photo by John Knowles
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The Grand County High School swim team saw several individual swimmers improve their times during a three-team meet held in Price on Friday, Jan. 11.

  The event, which featured Grand, Richfield, and host Carbon High, was scored as a “double dual” meet, with each team being scored against the other two teams separately. Under that scoring system, Richfield defeated Grand 211 to 113 – 109-50 in the boys’ events and 102-63 in the girls’ contests. Carbon outpaced Grand 180-115, winning the boys’ events 79-53 and the girls’ events 101-62. In the Richfield vs. Carbon results, the Richfield boys outscored Carbon 102-60, but Carbon’s girls narrowly edged the Wildcats by the score of 86-84. Richfield emerged as the overall winner of the meet.

  “It was a good meet overall,” said GCHS head coach Brian Pierce. “We are back on track and excited to be getting ready for the region and state meets coming up. Everyone is working hard to cut their times and qualify for state in multiple events.”

  The best overall time improvement for a Grand athlete was by freshman Jayelen Knowles, who shaved nearly 10 seconds off her previous best in the 500-yard freestyle event, finishing in a time of 7 minutes, 1.99 seconds. She placed third out of eight swimmers in that race. Knowles also cut two seconds from her personal best in the 200-yard freestyle, posting a fourth-place time of 2:31.75.

  Also for the GCHS girls, freshman River Richards swam the 200-yard freestyle event for the first time, taking second place with a time of 2:29.50. Richards also improved on her time in the 100-yard breaststroke, taking fourth place in that race with a time of 1:22.03, nearly a quarter-second better than her previous best of 1:22.27.

  Sophomore Sadie Bown swam the 200-yard freestyle in 2:44.20, more than 1.5 seconds better than her previous best.

  Grand’s four other female swimmers, junior Cora Johnston, freshman Alexa Pierce, sophomore Mandi Wilkinson, and junior Robin Willscheidt, all came within a second or two of matching their personal best times in one or more races, coach Pierce added.

  The Red Devil boys saw similar success. GCHS senior Jackson Knowles cut his time in two individual races, posting a personal-best time of 2:06.73 in the 200-yard freestyle and shaving off slightly more than a half-second in the 100-yard butterfly with a time of 1:00.43. He placed first in both events at the meet. Knowles also swam the first 50-yard leg of the 200-yard freestyle relay in a personal-best time of 25.33 seconds.

  Also for the Red Devil boys, sophomore Drake Hackney recorded a personal-best time of 28.03 in the 50-yard freestyle, taking third place overall among 15 swimmers. In addition, freshman Ethan Clark improved on his time in both of his individual events, swimming the 50-yard freestyle in 33.66 seconds and the 100-yard freestyle in 1:13.78.

  Three other male swimmers from Grand also came within a couple seconds of matching their personal best times in one or more individual events. They were senior Treyton Helquist, sophomore River Murdock and junior Duncan Reidhead.

  This week, the Red Devils were scheduled to compete in a meet at Richfield on Wednesday, Jan. 15, starting at 4 p.m. The swim team’s next meet after that will be the 2A South Divisional meet in Castle Dale on Saturday, Jan. 25.
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