Courtesy of MOR
The Marlins Of Raleigh Swim Team (MOR) won 7 events and finished in 3rd place out of over 300 teams at the National Club Swimming Association Jr. Nationals held in Orlando March 13-17. The meet brought together over 1500 of the top 18-Under swimmers in the US and is a hotbed for college recruiters. Over 250 swimmers competed in most Preliminary events and 5 heats of 8 swimmers made finals with the A, B, C finals all scoring points. MOR won the most events of any team at the Meet which included Madison Homovich winning the 1000 (9:33.63) and 1650 Free (16:05.15), Grace Countie won the 50 (22.30) and 100 Free (48.88), Abby Arens won the 100 Breast (1:00.01) and Zach Brown won the 200 Fly (1:43.96) MOR won the women’s 200 Medley Relay (1:39.96) consisting of Madison Homovich, Ashley McCauley, Abby Arens, Grace Countie.
Team Scores were as follows with MOR in 3rd for Women and Combined and 10th in Men. New Wave Swim Team of Raleigh finished 11th in the Women scoring:
Women:
1-Nations Capital Washington DC 1229
2-Aquajets Minneapolis 867.5
3-MOR Raleigh 820
4-Nova Richmond 650
11-New Wave Raleigh 301
Men
1-Nation’s Capital 1159
2-Academy Bullets Chicago 753
3-New Trier Chicago 458
4-Long Island NY 456
10-MOR Raleigh 290
Combined
1-Nation’s Capital 2388
2-Aquajets
3-MOR
4-Academy Bullets 1081.5
MOR swimmers broke 3 NC Swimming Age Group State records. Madison broke the 15-18 1000 Free. Abby broke the 15-16 100 Breast and Zach Brown broke the 15-18 200 Fly record. All these swimmers held the previous record.
MOR Swimmers who placed in the top 8 included:
- Abby Arens 16 Soph St. Mary’s School Raleigh
- 9th highest scoring female in the meet
- 100 Breast 1st 1:00.01
- 100 IM 3rd 55.19
- 50 Breast 3rd 28.27
- 200 Breast 2nd 2:10.04
- Zach Brown 17 Sr. Athens Drive HS Cary (committed to NC State)
- 1000 Free 8th 9:14.25
- 200 Fly 1st 1:43.96
- 100 Fly 2nd 47.66
- 50 Fly 5th 22.04
- Grace Countie 18 Leesville Rd HS Raleigh (committed to UNC)
- 100 IM 2nd 55.16
- 100 Free 1st 48.88
- 100 Back 4th 52.94
- 50 Back 3rd 24.44
- 50 Free 1st 22.30
- John Healy 17 Green Hope HS Cary (committed to NCSU)
- 200 Back 7th 1:45.92
- Madison Homovich 17 Woods Charter School Pittsboro (committed to U. of Georgia)
- 1000 Free 1st 9:33.63
- 200 Back 4th 1:54.15
- 200 Fly 5th 1:58.15
- 400 IM 2nd 4:10.92
- 500 Free 3rd 4:41.95
- 1650 Free 1st 16:05.15
- Ashley McCauley 17 Leesville Rd HS Raleigh
- 100 Breast 5th 1:01.01
- 200 Breast 3rd 2:10.20
MOR Swimmers who placed in the 9-16 and 17-24 places scoring valuable points for MOR included:
- Connor Dalbo 18 Green Hope HS Cary (committed to SMU)
- 100 Breast 23rd 57.29
- Jaden Kring 17 Sanderson HS Raleigh
- 200 Fly 12th 1:48.54
- Josh Legge 17 Millbrook HS Raleigh (committed to George Washington U)
- 1000 Free 11th 9:16.48
- Ashley Worden 16 Cardinal Gibbons HS Raleigh
- 200 Fly 20th 1:59.43
MOR Swimmers who placed in the D and E finals included
- Adrianna Cera (1000 Free), Sammy Lucht (200 Breast), Sean Quinn (1000 Free, 1650 Free), Rachel Strickland (200 Back).
MOR relays were dominant as the following relays scored points. Relays are crucial as they are awarded double the point value of individual events.
- Women’s Relays
- 800 Free Relay 2nd 7:15.79 (Countie, Arens, Homovich, Adrianna Cera)
- 200 Medley Relay 1st 1:39.96 (Homovich, McCauley, Arens, Countie)
- 400 Free Relay 6th 3:22.71 (Arens, Countie, Homovich, Madison Duracinsky)
- 200 Free Relay 6th 1:32.81 (Sophie Clayton–Luce, Arens, Countie, Homovich)
- 400 Medley ‘A’ Relay 4th 3:42.22 (Countie, Arens, Homovich, Duracinsky) “B” Relay 23rd (Clayton-Luce, Genna Joyce, Ashley Worden, Izzy Barnette)
- Men’s Relays
- 800 Free Relay 12th 7:47.73 (Hunter Pigg, Brown, Healy, Legge)
- 200 Medley Relay 5th 1:31.83 (Healy, Dalbo, Brown, Pigg)
“I am so proud of our swimmers. To win 7 events at a meet of this level is impressive and is a reflection of the hard work and dedication of these athletes. MOR was the talk of the meet all week. No team from Raleigh has ever performed as well at the National level as our current group of Marlins. In addition, they overcame a lot of adversity as 9 of our 33 swimmers came down with the flu while at the meet and therefore could not compete later in the meet. This caused some late night room changes but they took it all in stride and competed to win.” said MOR head coach Paul Silver.