By: Griffin Callaghan | [email protected] | October 30, 2023
River Ridge finished atop the leaderboard at the 2023-24 Cherokee County Kickoff swim meet on Saturday at the Cherokee County Aquatic Center.
The Knights took the combined victory with 487 points, beating out second-place Woodstock (324 points) and third-place Etowah (307 points). They won both the boys and girls competitions with 214 points and 273 points, respectively.
“We were very pleased about the performance of our swimmers at Saturday’s meet,” River Ridge coach Tracye Bolger said. “The team earned 17 qualifying state times, which far exceeded our expectations this early in the season.”
Creekview was the second-placed boys’ team with 200 points, followed by Sequoyah at 156 points. Woodstock took second on the girls’ side with 225 points, with Etowah (167 points) in the third spot.
Jersey Saylor and Addison Hodgins led the River Ridge girls with 23 and 21 points, respectively. Saylor won the 100-yard freestyle race with a time of 57.03 seconds, and she was part of the first-place 400-yard freestyle relay team of Ava Hoynowski, Macie Portis, Hodgins and herself.
Leia Lankford led the second-place Wolverines with a first-place finish in the 200-yard freestyle (2:02.37). She helped them win the 200-yard medley and freestyle relays as well, scoring times of 1:55.81 and 1:46.79, respectively.
Liam Dunn (22 points) and Diego Ladera (21 points) led the boys’ unit, with Dunn taking four second-place finishes. He raced in the 200-yard medley and 400-yard freestyle relays alongside Cole Womack, Ladera and Maddox Walkley.
Ladera accounted for three second-place marks and one third place in the 500-yard freestyle event.
The boys’ race was substantially closer than the girls’, with just 14 points separating River Ridge and Creekview. Ty Galloway and Jack Michler had nice performances for the Grizzlies as Galloway won both the 100-yard freestyle (50.00) and 200-yard freestyle (1:51.68) races.
Galloway scored 28 points, which counted as the boys’ meet-high, tied with Sequoyah’s Mason Thomas, who won the 200 IM (2:03.07) and 100-yard backstroke (55.32).
Lainey Blase, for the Chiefs, was the girls’ leading scorer, also with 28 points. She earned victories in the 100-yard fly (1:02.02) and 200 IM (2:15.04). She helped Sequoyah to second place in the 200 and 400 freestyle relays alongside Olivia Parks, Amelia Buynoski and Isabel Harper.
Team Scores
Overall
River Ridge 487
Woodstock 324
Etowah 307
Creekview 298
Sequoyah 279
Cherokee 158
Boys
River Ridge 214
Creekview 200
Sequoyah 156
Etowah 140
Woodstock 99
Cherokee 92
Girls
River Ridge 273
Woodstock 225
Etowah 167
Sequoyah 123
Creekview 98
Cherokee 66
