By RAY BENTON
Leader sports editor
Ten league records fell and two local teams dominated much of the competition at the 2015 Central Arkansas Swim League’s Meet of Champions on Saturday at UALR’s Donaghey Center. Eight of the 10 records were broken by local athletes, including three by Lonoke’s Kayla McGee. The 16-year old won four events and broke league records in the 15-18-year old division’s breaststroke, butterfly and freestyle. She also came within seven one hundredths of a second from breaking the record in the individual medley.
Other record-breaking performances included Cabot’s Noah Joyner shattering the CASL record in the boys 18-under breaststroke by more than a second with a time of 29.71. He became the first swimmer in league history to finish the race in less than 30 seconds. Joyner also came within .26 seconds of the record in the individual medley, and became only the second swimmer in CASL history to break the one-minute mark in that event, finishing with a time of 59.86. He also took second to Maumelle’s Spencer Hazen in the butterfly and backstroke.
Sherwood 14-year old Carson Traylor broke the boys’ 14-under butterfly record with a time of 26.61, beating the old record by .16 seconds. Traylor’s 12-year old teammate Phillip Stanley also broke the old record in his age group’s butterfly, but had to settle for second place. Stanley’s time of 29.83 beat the old record of 30.07, but Lakewood’s Caleb Hoskins also beat that record and Stanley with a time of 29.68.
McGee’s record time of 28.56 in the 18-under butterfly beat the previous record by .27, and held off Sherwood’s Camryn Jenkins and Cabot’s Melanie Abbott, who finished second and third respectively. McGee beat the freestyle record by .10 with a time of 25.84, and beat second place Katie Frederick of Cabot, who finished in 28.28.
The Sharkrocket’s record time in the breaststroke was 32.50, beating the previous record by .43 seconds, and beating second place Libby Thompson of Bryant by almost four seconds. Abbott took third in that race as well.
Stanley also won the boys’ 12-under IM with a time of 1:08.02.
The Sherwood Sharks’ 8-under freestyle relay team also broke the league record. Sophie Gaylord, Lillie Ballany, Emma Browning and Olivia Dunn finished in 1:10.14, shattering the previous record, which was set last year by a team that also included Dunn and Browning, by almost three seconds.
Sherwood swimmers dominated the relays, winning half of the 10 relay events. The Cabot Piranhas won three relays while Conway and Otter Creek won one apiece.
Sherwood teams won the boys’ 6-under freestyle, boys’ and girls’ 8-under freestyle, girls’ 19-under freestyle and boys’ 12-under freestyle. Cabot won the girls’ 6-under, 12-under and 14-under relays.
Sherwood eight-year olds Maddox McCrory and Lilly Moseley also broke CASL records in the boys’ and girls’ breaststroke. McCrory finished in 20.95 to beat the boys’ record of 21.14. Moseley finished in 20.41, to beat the previous record of 21.40. Moseley’s teammates Browning and Dunn were second and third in that event. Dunn was also second in the freestyle and backstroke.
The meet was divided up with kids 11-18 competing in the morning and 10-under swimmers competing in the afternoon.
Traylor opened the morning session by winning the boys 14-under freestyle, again edging out Cabot’s Tristen Bowen, but he lost three other races to Bowen. The 14-year old Piranha edged Traylor in the backstroke and individual medley. He also won the breaststroke, beating teammate Jason Bongfeldt by a mere .08, while Traylor finished third.
Hoskins and Stanley finished first and second in two other races as well. Hoskins beat Stanley by .19 seconds in the backstroke, but Stanley beat Hoskins by more than two seconds to win the breaststroke.
Lady Piranha 12-year-old Jessica Bongfeldt won four events in her division. She beat Sherwood’s Betsy Ponder by 2.26 seconds in the IM with a time of 1:12.44, edged Sherwood’s Avery Ballany by .33 seconds in the butterfly with a time of 33.60, beat Bryant’s Ella Reynolds in the backstroke by .61 with a 33.39 finish and blew away the field by beating second place by more than three seconds in the breaststroke with a time of 35.86.
Cabot’s 14-year-old Abigail Breedlove won two events, including the backstroke with a time of 32.64, and the freestyle with a time of 27.72. Rachel Montanaro took third in the backstroke, but edged Breedlove in the breaststroke, winning that event by .48 with a time of 36.29.
While Cabot won the lion’s share of events in the older age groups, Sherwood was strongest in the afternoon session with the younger swimmers, especially in the boys’ divisions.
Six-year old Shark Luke Wagner won all four strokes in his age group while nine-year old Michael Potts won all four strokes and the IM in the 10-under division.
Potts was the only swimmer in his division to post a platinum level time in the IM, while teammates Joshua Reynolds and Jake Hale posted the fastest gold level times. Cabot’s Maddux Bowen took third in the gold level IM and Hudson Cameron of Sherwood was fourth.
Reynolds was second to Potts in the butterfly, breaststroke and freestyle as well, while Hudson was second in the backstroke.
Sherwood swimmers, in fact, swept the top five spots in the boys’ 10-under backstroke, and the top three spots in the freestyle and breaststroke. Hale and A.J. Clements were among those high finishers for Sherwood.
On top of his record time in the breaststroke, Maddox McCrory won two other events while teammate Cooper Traylor won the one in that 8-under age group. McCrory beat teammate James Bolton in the backstroke and Traylor in the freestyle.
Traylor won the butterfly, edging out Bryant’s Noah Robnett and Cabot’s Jake Belton.
In the girls’ competition, Cabot’s nine-year-old Esteban Grace won four of the five events in the 10-under division, including the IM, freestyle, breaststroke and butterfly. She, teammate Carly Madar and Maumelle’s Eden Hamlin swept the top three in those four events.
Madar took second in the IM and breaststroke, while Hamlin was second and Madar third in the backstroke and butterfly.
Hamlin beat Grace in the backstroke by .45 seconds, while Sherwood’s Meredith Lipsey, Carly Morrow and Ashley Jackson rounded out the top five.
Cabot six-year-old Liliana Stassner won all four events in her division while her teammate, Micah Madar, posted the second-fastest time in three events, including winning the gold level backstroke race with a time faster than all but two platinum swimmers.
