Relay teams anchor

WHS’s trip to regional
By Steve Behr
sports@wataugademocrat.com

Watauga’s boys and girls swim teams will compete in the Western 4-A Regional at the Mecklenburg Aquatic Center in uptown Charlotte Saturday.

The preliminaries begin at 9:15 a.m., while the finals are at 5 p.m. The top 16 times in the preliminaries advance to the finals. The top eight times advance to the state finals, which are in Chapel Hill on Feb. 9.

The Pioneers have several swimmers who have their eyes on Chapel Hill. Jonathan Edwards will be one of the busiest Watauga swimmers Saturday when he competes in the 200 medley relay, the 200 freestyle and the 200 freestyle relay.

Teammates William Rayner, Minori Ohashi and Konrad Kosmala will swim in the medley relay. Edwards, Konrad Kosmala, Ohashi and Rayner will swim in the 200 relay.

Kosmala will swim in the 100 freestyle, while Alden Mast will swim in the 200, and 500 freestyle. Trevon Jensen qualified for the 200 individual medley and the 100 breaststroke, and Ohashi did the same in the 100 butterfly. Rayner will also swim in the 100 backstroke.

The girls team is sending three relay teams to the regional. The Pioneers’ 200 medley relay team of Elizabeth Brewer, Ingrid Forsyth, Crystal Tsang and Mallie Billing will swim, while Tsang, Forsyth, Billing will be joined by Laiken Williams in the 200 relay.

Brewer, Forsyth, Tsang and Billing will also swim the 400 relay. Brewer will swim the 100 backstroke.