WHS boys

finish second
By Steve Behr
sports@wataugademocrat.com

VALDESE — Watauga’s boys’ swimming team needed to win some unexpected points if it wanted to catch East Burke during the Northwestern 4-A Conference swimming championships at Valdese Aquatic Club.

The Pioneers picked up a few extra points, but not enough to overcome the Cavaliers, who won the overall team event with 358 points. Watauga was a close second with 349 points and South Caldwell was third with 300. “Coming in, I knew East Burke would have more points and were supposed to win,” Pioneers coach David Gragg said. “It was one of those things that if we could get a three-point swing or a six-point swing somewhere, it would turn it around.”

In the girls’ meet, South Caldwell held off A.C. Reynolds by a mere three points. South Caldwell finished with 304 points, while Reynolds settled for 301. East Burke was third with 262 followed by Watauga with 198.

The boys’ meet proved to be extremely close as far as direct competition with East Burke. The Pioneers lost nine events by less than one second, six to East Burke.

“A lot of those events, they were first, we were second,” Gragg said. “It was one of those things I knew that if we beat them, it could turn into a three-point swing, or a six-point swing.”

William Rayner picked up the boys’ first conference championship when he won the 50-yard freestyle.

Rayner finished with a time of 23.16 seconds, which is a conference record.

“At the beginning of the season, I really wanted to make something of myself, especially at conference,” Rayner said. “My times started improving over the course of the season. It was like ‘I know I can do this.’ The race was really close.

“I knew that I had won the race, but I did not know that I had broken the conference record until they announced it over the intercom.”

“I’ve never felt that in my life, that feeling of happiness,” he added.

Later in the meet, Rayner won the backstroke with a time of 58.00. He was the only swimmer to finish under a minute in the race.

Konrad Kosmala swam to the Pioneers’ second conference championship when he won the 100-yard freestyle.

Kosmala, a sophomore, finished with a time of 52.86. He started the race behind East Burke’s Shawn Reece, but was able to catch Reece in the final 50 yards and win. Reece was second with a 53:13.

Kosmala was also third in the backstroke with a time of 1:03.12.

“At first, I didn’t think I was going to catch up to him,” Kosmala said. “It turned out that the flip-turns were really working out for me. Shawn’s a great swimmer and we’ve been pushing each other for the past two years. I guess I finally beat him.”

Gragg said that Kosmala turned in a good split time in a relay shortly before the race and gained confidence as a result.

“After that relay when he had that super-fast relay split, he knew that he was going to go faster,” Gragg said.
Jonathan Edwards was the next Watauga swimmer to win a conference title when he captured the 500 freestyle with a time of 5:32.76. The Pioneers showed some depth in the event when Alden Mast finished third with a 5:36.24.

The final Watauga conference championship turned out to be the final event of the meet. Watauga’s 400-meter relay team, comprised of Edwards, Minori Ohashi, Rayner and Kosmala set a new conference standard with a time of 3:31.67. They easily outdistanced East Burke, which finished with a 3:47.89.

Edwards added a second-place finish in the 200 freestyle (1:59.53), while Mast was fourth (2:05.08) in the same event. Ohashi was second in the 100 butterfly with a (59.72). East Burke’s Matt Hodges won the race with a conference record of 54.74.

Edwards gave the Pioneers’ 400 relay team a slight lead after the first leg. Rayner turned that lead into a solid advantage during the second leg, which Ohashi and Kosmala added to when they were in the pool.

“We knew that we were going for that conference record and we knew that the school record was actually faster than the conference record,” Gragg said. “They knew they were there.”

Trevon Jensen was third in the individual medley (2:22.48), while William Tsang was sixth (2:34.57). Jensen also was third in the breaststroke (1:10.42), while Dylan Russell was sixth (1:16.84). Watauga’s 200 medley relay team of Edwards, Rayner, Ohashi and Kosmala finished second. Watauga’s 200 relay team of Jensen, Tsang, Mast and Houston Sherer took second behind East Burke.

Watauga’s girls got a second place finish from its 400 relay team. The team, comprised of Elizabeth Brewer, Ingrid Forsyth, Crystal Tsang and Mallie Billing, finished with a time of 4:20.87.

The Pioneers also got a third place finish from Brewer in the backstroke (1:12.87), while Laiken Williams was seventh (1:20.60). Ingrid Forsyth was fourth in the 200 freestyle (2:23.06), grabbed a fifth place in the 500 freestyle (6:38.62), and the Pioneers got a fifth place from Crystal Tsang in the 200 individual medley (2:45.74). Mallie Billing was third in the 100 freestyle (1:03.73) and fifth in the 50 freestyle (28.76).

“The girls really fought hard,” Gragg said. “We improved and they’ve been getting better. Sometimes, the girl in the other lane is just faster.”

Watauga turns its attention to the Western Regional, which is Feb. 2 in Charlotte.