Fishburne Swimmers Face Triple Threat at North Cross

Report from Coach Katherine Gray

Wednesday marked Fishburne Military School’s second meet of the season and there were 4 teams competing (North Cross, Virginia Episcopal School, Liberty Christian Academy and us) so it was actually three meets in one.  Our guys did a fantastic job, making friends on deck, impressing other coaches and swimming their hearts out.  Our team is the best it has been in years, but our competition has also been getting better.  We beat North Cross (55-38), but were beaten by LCA (43-51) and VES (45-49).

At the last meet our Medley Relay (Colin Green, Joshua Draper, McKinely Duffer and Devin Soulsby) was three seconds away from qualifying for states.  They set a goal of qualifying for states this time around and almost made it.  They missed the qualifying time by just .2 seconds, but blew the rest of the competition out of the water.  The next fastest time was 11 seconds slower, and they came in first in all three meets.  One of the other most exciting events was the 200 IM.  Joshua Draper came out fast and had a strong lead through the fly and back stroke, but as he hit the second 100 he started to loose steam and the swimmer from North Cross managed to catch up to him and they both hit the wall at almost exactly the same time.  We couldn’t really tell who had one but at the end of the meet when we got the times Draper had lost by .09 seconds.  However he placed first in the other two meets agains VES and LCA.

North Cross used to be one of the best swimming programs in our conference but has a small team this year.  However they still have one of the top swimmers in the state.  But this year we also have a super star and McKinley Duffer was only just out touched by the North Cross star in both the 100 Fly and the 100 Back. However McKinley placed first in the other two meets.  McKinley and Mac (the North Cross swimmer) were body lengths ahead of all the other competitors. Yet again Duffer broke school records and qualified for states in all of his individual events.  Devin Soulsby placed first in the 200 Free.   Royce Pinner came in second in the 50 Free.  JinWoo Lee a first year swimmer who has improved dramatically over the few weeks of practice had an astounding 100 Free and came in first against North Cross and second against LCA and VES.  He is only 2 seconds away from setting a school record. It was an absolutely amazing performance from an incredibly dedicated and hard working young man. Our 200 Free relays pulled out a 1-2 finish solidifying our win against North Cross.  We also had second place finishes from John Hutchinson in the 100 Breast (who dropped a whopping 18 seconds) and Nicholas Price in the 500 Free.

The meet against VES was incredibly close and we have a good shot at beating them when we face them next in January.  McKinely Duffer and Colin Green came in 1-2 in the 100 back securing us many points. John Hutchinson came in first in the 100 Breast.

LCA is a powerhouse this year being both very large and very strong.  They beat all of the teams that were at the meet, but we came the closest to defeating them.  Thanks in part to Royce Pinner and Tarik Fayyad who came in second and third in the 50 Free.