KFHS loses but ready for conference swim
Published 8:03 pm Tuesday, February 3, 2015
The King’s Fork High School boys’ and girls’ swimming teams faced Hickory High School on Saturday and fell in blowout losses at the Great Bridge Swim and Racquet Club.
The Hawks won 133-34, and the Lady Hawks triumphed 124-45, but King’s Fork coach Erin Manning was pleased with how her swimmers performed in the face of it.
“They all swam well. They all swam with heart,” she said. “We all knew going in, it was going to be a rough day.”
Hickory, a school with a larger student body to pull from than King’s Fork, went undefeated in the Southeastern District this season.
In terms of individual swimmers’ performances, King’s Fork showed improvement on Saturday.
“We actually had an amazing swim in the boys’ 100 fly,” Manning said.
Junior Alexander Kaye finished the 100-meter butterfly in one minute and 11 seconds.
“He broke his school record by two seconds,” Manning said, noting it puts him quite close to a regional-qualifying time. “We’re looking forward to a really, really good swim for him at conferences on Thursday.”
She also highlighted junior Jimmy Smith, who she said “has been working really hard,” and she’s looking forward to him having a big week this week.
Manning said a lot of her female swimmers dropped their times on Saturday, including sophomore Isabella Naccarato, who took seven seconds off of her time in the 400-meter freestyle.
The King’s Fork boys’ team finished the 2014-15 regular season with a 4-5 record, while the girls’ team finished with a 2-7 record.
Though it was a blowout, the Hickory meet served as a bit of practice for KF in preparation for this week’s Ironclad Conference championships on Thursday and Friday in Newport News.
“We’re very excited for conferences, we just can’t wait to get there,” Manning said. “The great thing about conferences is it’s all schools our size.”
While King’s Fork does not have any state qualifiers yet, its coach said, “We’ll be trying to get to states just through placement at the regional meet, which is doable.”
In the conference championships, swimmers finishing in the top 10 for individual events and teams finishing in the top eight for relay events advance to regionals. The same requirements exist at regionals to reach states.