By GRAHAM POWELL
Leader sportswriter
The Cabot High School boys’ and girls’ swim teams each took first place in their first home meet of the season Wednesday at the Veteran’s Park Community Center in Cabot.
The Panthers totaled 443 team points to easily outpoint North Little Rock, whose 329 points were good for second place. Valley View finished third out of the eight teams competing in the boys’ division, finishing with 162 points. Jonesboro finished fourth with 149, and Lonoke finished fifth with 129.
In the girls’ division, the Lady Panthers were even more dominant. The Cabot girls totaled 540 points, which was more than double the points that second-place North Little Rock totaled. The NLR girls finished with 242 points.
Jonesboro finished third out of the 11 teams competing in the girls’ division, totaling 215 points. Greene County Tech took fourth place with 199, and Valley View finished fifth with 116.
The Cabot boys finished first overall in the 400-yard freestyle relay with a time of 4:31.24, beating second-place NLR by more than 10 seconds. North Little Rock finished that relay event in 4:43.79.
The Panthers had two different swimmers finish first in individual events. Payton Jones won the 200-yard freestyle race, as well as the grueling 500-yard freestyle race, and Jordan Woodson won the 200-yard individual medley.
Jones was the only swimmer to finish the 200-yard freestyle in less than two minutes. He won that race in 1:54.96, beating Jonesboro’s Colby Neves, who finished second, by more than 10 seconds.
Jones won the 500-yard freestyle by almost two full minutes. He finished that race in 5:15.47, beating Andrew Stuff of NLR, who finished second with a time of 7:10.71.
Woodson’s winning race was much closer. He finished the 200-yard IM in 2:14.24, which barely beat NLR swimmer Josh Hale’s time of 2:14.27.
The Cabot girls won two different relay events Wednesday. The Lady Panthers won the 200-yard freestyle relay with a time of 1:47.78, beating second-place Jonesboro’s time of 1:51.67.
In the 400-yard freestyle relay, the Cabot girls finished first with a time of 4:19.06 – more than a minute faster than second-place NLR’s time of 5:20.04.
Haylee Beckley and Jessie Baldwin each won two separate individual events for Cabot. Beckley won the 200-yard and 500-yard freestyle races, and Baldwin finished first in the 100-yard backstroke and breaststroke races.
Beckley won the 200-yard freestyle with a time of 2:07.76, beating second-place Sydney Adams, of Greene County Tech, who finished in 2:16.38. Beckley won the 500-yard freestyle race with a time of 5:35.38.
Baldwin won the 100-yard backstroke event by more than four seconds. Her winning time of 1:03.55 beat out Jonesboro’s Grace Tedder, who took second place with a time of 1:07.59.
Baldwin narrowly won the 100-yard breaststroke. She finished that race with a winning time of 1:11.87, which edged Lonoke’s Kayla McGee, who finished second with a time of 1:11.96.
McGee did finish first in the 50-yard freestyle race. She finished that event with a winning time of 0:25.40, beating Cabot’s Caytee Wright, who finished second with a time of 0:25.86.
Wright did win an individual event as well, though. She won the 100-yard freestyle race with a time of 1:00.07, beating second-place Mary Kline of Jonesboro, who finished in 1:01.38.
Cabot’s next swim meet will be Thursday, Dec. 11 at the Jacksonville Community Center, and it’s scheduled to start at 6 p.m.
