Relay team

reaches finals
From staff reports

CHAPEL HILL — Watauga’s boys’ 200-yard relay team managed to reach the finals in the NCHSAA class 4-A swim championships Saturday.

The team of Jonathan Edwards, Konrad Kosmala, Minori Ohashi and William Rayner finished 16th overall in the event. They reached the finals with a time of 1:33.28 and swam a 1:33.90 in the final.

It was the only event the Pioneers would be able to reach. The Pioneers’ 400 relay team, made up of the same swimmers, finished 21st with a 3:31.86, while the team’s 200 medley relay team finished 24th, clocking a time of 1:49.10.

Rayner was also 21st in the 100 backstroke with a time of 58.50.

Watauga coach David Gragg said Rayner and Kosmala had been slowed by illness all week and that did not help the Pioneers’ times.

“The times weren’t as fast as we had the previous week, but this is the first time in numerous years that a relay team has made it back to the finals,” Gragg said. “It was difficult knowing that if everyone was healthy, we could have placed higher. But they gave what they could.”

Indoor track
CHAPEL HILL — Watauga girls’ pole vaulter Taylor Cook finished fourth and, boys shot putter Matt Salzano also finished third in the indoor track and field finals Saturday.

Cook finished with a vault of 9-feet, 6-inches. Tori Rivers, of Clayton, won with a vault of 10-6.

Salzano was third with a toss of 49-3 1/4. His throw was not that far off event winner Giavanni Scott of Ardrey Kell, who had a toss of 50-11 1/4.

A pleasant surprise for the Pioneers was freshman Kasey Jones, who finished sixth in the 55-meter hurdles.

Jones finished with a time of 8.98 seconds.