There isn’t anything easy about swimming out of the first heat without a seed time looking to potentially to grab a win.
“As your body starts to get tired and there’s no one there who’s really as fast as you to race you, you really don’t have an incentive to swim fast,” said Albemarle swimmer Jack Robbins. “It’s really hard to keep swimming.”
Robbins and teammate Hogan Harper both overcame that challenge Tuesday night at the 2016 Ben Hair Memorial Meet, clocking a pair of key finishes out of those first heats while giving Albemarle a big boost in a 335-point performance that gave the Patriot boys squad its second straight Ben Hair championship and the first boy/girl sweep for the Patriots in the event since 2009.
“I tried to put them in a position where they’d have to show up and swim well,” said Albemarle coach J.J. Bean. “We put (some of) them in with no times where they had to swim in the first heat and race nobody and we put (some of) them in the last heat where they had to race the best of the best and I think overall we swam well.”
Robbins swam without a seed time in the 200-IM and took first place in the event then swam again without a seed time in the 100-free and took third place. Harper swam without a seed time in the 100-back and placed second behind Woodberry event winner Chas Sigloh while also taking third in the 100-breast.
As a team, the Patriots won both the 200-medley and 200-free relays, with Caleb Smith, Nick Pease, Harper and Robbins combing for both event victories.
Robbins was the lone individual event winner for the Patriots, but Smith took second in the 200-free and third in the 200-IM with a quick turnaround between the back-to-back events. Pease took second in the 100-fly and fourth in the 50-free. Joe Keller and Nick Ashby took fifth and sixth in the 500-free for Albemarle while Ashby also took seventh in the 100-breast.
It was a huge win for the Patriots as they look to build some solid momentum this season.
“Swimming well at meets like these is really good because it gives you confidence going forward,” Robbins said.
Western Albemarle finished second in the meet with 293 points bolstered by Aaron James’ monster outing. James won both the 50-free and the 100-free, and he did it after undergoing a rigorous winter training program as the Warriors look to build toward a potential run at a state championship.
“I feel like we performed to the best of our ability today coming off a pretty rigorous winter training schedule,” James said. “I’m excited for where we can be in the future.”
August Lamb took fourth in the 200-free and fifth in the 100-back for some critical points for the Warriors. Matt Mandell finished fifth in the 100-breast with Jack Vaughn grabbing sixth.
Western’s Wilson Brown won the diving championship Monday at Woodberry Forest to help the Warriors’ cause. A third place finish in the 200-medley relay, a fourth in the 200-free relay and a fifth in the 400-free also helped spark Western.
Fork Union’s 400-free relay team won the event title. The Blue Devils took third in the 200-free relay and got a runner-up finish from Nathaniel Bennett in the 50-free (he also was fourth in the 100-fly) and a third from Samer Khalil in the 100-fly.
Other event winners included STAB’s Brian Hynes who notched two wins in the 200-free and 100-fly as well as Woodberry’s Nick Switzer who won the 100-breast. The Tigers finished second as a team in the 400-free relay, 200-medley and 200-free relays to help boost Woodberry to a third place finish.
Covenant’s Sam Holstege had a strong night with a fifth in the 50-free and a runner-up finish in the 100-breast to Switzer.
