After a solid finish in the 3A Central Regional Championships, ten Orange swimmers are set to compete in the state championships.
Cedar Ridge’s Devin Bunner is also headed to Cary.
At the regionals last week at the Greensboro Aquatic Center, the Orange High men’s team finished 3rd overall out of 28 teams. The Lady Panthers women’s team finished 7th.
The biggest day belonged to Orange sophomore diver Stasz Zitko, who became the first athlete in school history to win a regional championship. Zitko finished with a score of 372.10. On Friday morning, Zitko finished 3rd in the 3A State Championships at Koury Natatorium at UNC-Chapel Hill.
Orange’s men’s medley relay team won the regional championship, breaking the school record at a time of 1:40.44. Noah Jimison, Matthew Geib, Owen Rasinske and Cross Roman formed the team that edged the Chapel Hill team by .16 of a second.
Jimison set two school records in the 100 backstroke and the 200 individual medley, qualifying for the state championships in both events. Jimison finished 4th in the backstroke in 55.19 seconds, and came in 5th in the 200 at 2:01.85.
In addition to the relay teams, Geib qualified for the state championships in the 100 meter butterfly and the 100 breaststroke. Geib finished 2nd in the 100 fly at 52.29. He finished 4th in the breaststroke at 1:01.57. Both times were personal bests.
Bunner, the Big 8 Male Swimmer of the Year, finished 2nd in the 100 yard breaststroke at 1:00.20, just seven-tenths-of-a-second behind Chapel Hill’s Michael Volpe. Bunner also came in 4th in the 200 yard individual medley at 1:59.07.
Cedar Ridge’s 400 yard freestyle relay team of Bunner, Grant Fox, Gabriel Castaneda and John Garcia also qualified for the state championships with a sixth place finish.
Individually, Castaneda broke 1:00 in the 100 butterfly for the first time in his career.
Orange’s Ashley Behringer qualified in two individual events. She finished 7th in the 200 individual medley at 2:20.49, her best time of the season. Behringer came in eighth in the 100 meter butterfly at 1:01.88, another season best. She also swam on both relay teams that qualified for the state championships.
Behringer was joined by Calla Walker, Brooke Walker and Abby Dease on the Medley Relay team. Behringer, Dease, Calla Walker and Melissa Campbell qualified in the 400 yard freestyle relay team with a sixth place finish at 3:55.46.
The 3A State Championships will be held at the Cary Aquatic Center starting on Saturday morning. The preliminaries will be held Saturday morning. The Championship finals will be held later in the afternoon.
Brooke Walker finished 7th in the 100 breaststroike with a mark of 1:11.88, another personal best.
On the men’s side, Roman finished sixth in the 100 breaststroke at 1:05.44. Roman will also spend Saturday on Orange’s two relay teams.
Both of the teams that finished ahead of Orange in the men’s team standings were Big 8 Conference rivals. Chapel Hill won the 3A team championship with 375 points. East Chapel Hill finished 2nd at 334 points. Orange had 220 points.
On the women’s side, East Chapel Hill won the team regional championship with 356 points. Chapel Hill came in 2nd with 301 points. Orange had 147 points.
Cedar Ridge’s Olivia Aitkin broke six minutes in the 500 freestyle for the first time.