Close at the finish: Nederland boys win district swim meet by 2
Published 11:43 pm Thursday, January 28, 2016
- Grayson Fanette of Nederland swims the second leg of the 4x50-yard relay in the District 22-5A swim meet Thursday at the Thomas Center natatorium. (I.C. Murrell/The News)
The News staff report
BEAUMONT — In the end, Nederland had just a little more to win a district championship.
Two Nederland swimmers competed in the final event to give the Bulldogs enough points to take the District 22-5A team boys standings Thursday at the Thomas Center natatorium. Nederland finished with 84 points, edging Vidor by 2.
Nederland came in second in the girls standings with 94 points, behind Vidor’s 107.
The Bulldogs and Lady Bulldogs combined to win seven events Thursday. The boys 200-yard medley relay team of Caleb Abshire, Grayson Fanette, Salvador Contreras and Damian Perez beat the 2-minute mark with a time of 1:58.38, beating Vidor by more than 24 seconds. The Bulldogs had a seed time of 2:02.41 going into the event.
The four boys teamed up for another win in the 200-yard freestyle relay, with Abshire still in the first leg, Perez moving up to the second, Fanette in the third and Contreras in the fourth. Their 1:46.46 time beat their seed time by 0.64.
Contreras won the 200-yard freestyle in 1:52.67, almost 35 seconds faster than the second-place finisher, and took the 100-yard freestyle (50.55 seconds) by a 1.13-second margin.
Karley Thompson earned the first of her two victories in the 200-yard individual medley. The sophomore turned in a time of 2:17.26, winning by more than 11 seconds.
Thompson also was dominant in the 100-yard backstroke, her 59.24-second swim 6 seconds ahead of second-place teammate Klara Morfeld.
Johnna Landrum of Nederland won the girls 50-yard freestyle. She was separated from third-place teammate Melanie Morton by 0.87 second.
In other top-three finishes: Cody Sasser of Port Neches-Groves was second in the boys 200 freestyle, Abshire took second in the boys 50 free, Catherine Reinholt of PN-G was second in the 100 butterfly, the Nederland 200 freestyle relay team was second, Landrum came in second in the girls 100 breaststroke, and Fanette was second in the boys 100 breaststroke.
PN-G was fourth in girls team standings with 18 and fifth in boys with 15.
Regional meets will be held Feb. 5-6, with the state meet set for Feb. 19-20 at the Texas Swim Center in Austin.
About I.C. Murrell
I.C. Murrell was promoted to editor of The News, effective Oct. 14, 2019. He previously served as sports editor since August 2015 and has won or shared eight first-place awards from state newspaper associations and corporations. He was born in Memphis, Tennessee, grew up mostly in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, and graduated from the University of Arkansas at Monticello.
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