ATLANTA — Tift County Swim Devils earned six finals Friday at the Class 6A state swim meet at Georgia Tech, with the Lady Devils finishing in 18th place.
Only six of 28 girls teams pointing at the 6A girls meet were not from Metro Atlanta. Tift finished better than any of them with 57 points. Lee County was 19th. No other Region 1-6A girls teams scored. For the boys, Thomas County Central was also 18th..
The 400 freestyle relay team of Kendall Sasser, Brynna Burke, Brianna Domagala and Anna Lupo placed 11th in the finals, the best in any event. This was one spot better than in the preliminaries and their finals time of 3:47 was also four seconds better than what they swam in the morning session.
Tift had a pair of 14th places, from Lupo in the the 100 butterfly and from Domagala, Burke, Sasser and Lupo in the 200 freestyle relay. Both were one place better than in the preliminaries and with a quicker time.
Ava Wilson earned 15th in the 100 breaststroke at 1:10. Like her teammates, she lowered her time and gained a place in the final round.
Lupo was 17th in the 200 freestyle, her time of 1:59 two seconds better than earlier in the day. She qualified in 18th place in the prelims.
Raylee Walker, Wilson, Abby Lupo and Raegin Walker finished 19th in the 200 medley relay.
Burke was an alternate in the 500 freestyle final, which she swam in 5:33 for 22nd place. Unfortunately for Burke, no alternates were needed.
Domagala barely missed making the finals in the 200 individual medley as did Burke in the 100 butterfly. It was a similar fate for Karson Ponder, Rocky Faw, Landon Parrish and Aiden Thrasher in the boys 200 freestyle and 400 freestyle relays.
Also competing were Sasser in the 50 freestyle, Domagala in the 100 butterfly and Wilson and Sasser in the 100 freestyle.