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Dalton High School Catamounts

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February 11, 2012

Cats poised for big finish at state swimming

From Staff Reports sports@daltoncitizen.com



Dalton High swimmer Taylor Dale just keeps getting faster, and the junior’s speed could help push the Catamounts to a strong team finish today as the Georgia High School Association’s Class A-4A state meet wraps up in Atlanta.

In Friday’s preliminaries at Georgia Tech, Dale qualified for today’s finals in both of his individual events — the 100-yard butterfly and the 100 backstroke — as well as with the Cats’ 200 medley and 400 freestyle relay teams.

The top 16 finishers from swimming preliminaries advance to the finals, and Dale will be joined today by relay teammates Omar Farag, Pierson Scarborough and Wil Cushman. Farag and Scarborough also qualified in both of their individual events, with Farag advancing in the 200 individual medley and the 100 butterfly, while Scarborough moved on in the 50 freestyle and 100 breaststroke.

Swimmers are allowed to compete in a maximum of four events at the meet, including no more than two individual swims.

Also competing today for Dalton is Chase Hair in 1-meter diving, for which preliminaries are not held for state qualifiers.

“Looking at it, we could be scoring pretty good (today) if everything goes well,” Dalton coach Charles Todd said Friday.

The Cats’ 200 medley relay team was seeded No. 1 for state — as was Dale in both of his individual events — and it held up that standard Friday, turning in the top time for preliminaries at 1 minute, 36.67 seconds to tie the program record set by Trey Tharpe, Jeremy Jackson, Nelson Rhinehart and Clint Harkins at the 2006 state meet. That foursome won the title with their performance, capping a run of three straight championships in the event for the Cats, and helped Dalton to a fourth-place finish in the overall team standings.

Friday’s 200 medley relay time was also one-hundredth of a second off the National Interscholastic Swimming Coaches Association All-American time for 2011-12.

The Cats’ fifth-seeded 400 freestyle relay team finished in 3:15.38, the fourth-best preliminary time, with Dale turning in an impressive anchor time of 45.87.

Dale was also impressive in holding up his seed as an individual by finishing first in the prelims for the 100 butterfly at 49.16 and the 100 backstroke at 49.07. Both of those times set program records, qualified as All-American times and came within a second of state records — the GHSA state mark for the butterfly is 48.72, while the backstroke record is 48.42.

In the same Georgia Tech pool this past November, Dale swam the 100-meter backstroke in 57.36 seconds at the U.S. Winter Nationals to qualify for this summer’s U.S. Olympic trials in Omaha, Neb.

Farag, a senior, had the seventh-fastest time in the 100 butterfly at 53.21 and also advanced with a 2:00.52 in the 200 individual medley, cutting two seconds from his qualifying time as he finished 12th. Scarborough, a junior, was tied for 14th at 22.23 in the 50 freestyle and eighth at 1:00.31 in the 100 breaststroke.

Dalton sent a total of 15 swimmers, boys and girls, to state, including in all six relays.

The 200 boys freestyle relay team of Taylor Mathis, Brandt Tharpe, Michael O’Brien and Alan Trejo finished 28th in 1:35.15. Northwest Whitfield’s relay team in the same event of Sawyer Locke, Nicholas Marcadis, Chandler Rickett and Matthew Pipkin finished 54th with a time of 1:39.87.

The Lady Cats’ 200 freestyle relay team of Nineve Arriola, Anna Clarke, Maddie Miller and Rebecca Davis finished in 29th at 1:49.96, while the same lineup finished the 200 medley relay in 29th at 2:03.59. In the girls 400 freestyle relay, Arriola, Miller, Clarke and Emilie Smith finished the 400 freestyle relay in 37th at 4:22.34.

Davis, a senior, was the only Dalton girl who qualified for state as an individual. In the 200 individual medley, she was 28th in 2:21.47; in the 100 breaststroke, she was 21st in 1:12.24.

Other individual boys results from Friday, with time and preliminary finish in parentheses: Cushman, 200 freestyle (1:49.64, 21st), 500 freestyle (5:00.89, 19th); Mathis, 100 butterfly (55.51, 22nd), 100 backstroke (59.25, 29th); Mulkey, 100 breaststroke (1:05.34, 31st); Tharpe, 200 boys freestyle (1:51.94, 32nd), 500 boys freestyle (5:09.13, 29th).

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Dalton High School Catamounts