Blue Devils win at Lee County Trojan Invitational

TIFTON — The Tift County Blue Devils were the overall winners at the Lee County Trojan Invitational over the weekend.

Tift finished with 222 points, 85 points ahead Columbus and 113 ahead of Southland Academy, who was 3rd. The girls dominated in the standings with 129 points and a 56-point win over Columbus. Southland had their revenge in the boys standings, scoring 94 points to 2nd place Tift's 93.

Tift came out a winner in the boys 200 freestyle, with Hank McElroy taking the No. 1 slot nearly 10 seconds faster than No. 2. In the girls 50 freestyle, Claire Ryland was a winner, nosing out her nearest competitor by less than four-tenths of a second.

In relays, the top spot went to the girls team of Ansley Mobley, Olivia Thomas, Casey Hall and Ryland in the 400 freestyle. They finished a whopping 33 seconds ahead of their nearest competitors, Bainbridge.

The combo of Drew Wyatt, Hank McElroy, Tracy Blanchard and Jacob Harper finished second to Southland in the boys 200 medley relay. The fate went to the girls team of Hall, Thomas, Katelyn Seymour and Stephanie Connell in the race, as they were three seconds behind Columbus.

That was the finish in the boys and girls 200 freestyle relays, too. Wyatt, Ben Douglas, Blanchard and Scott Mucha also finished 2nd to a team from Columbus and on the girls side, Seymour, Connell, Mobley and Ryland were two-tenths behind 1st place Thomas County Central.

Runner-up went to Mobley in the girls 200 freestyle and other individual trophies went to Hall, who was 2nd in the 100 backstroke and Thomas, runner-up in the girls 100 breaststroke.

Other points earners were:

Hall, Seymour and Ashlee Golden, who were 3rd, 4th and 8th, respectively, in the girls 200 freestyle.

Mucha was 4th, in the boys 200 individual medley and Sarah Lawson was 7th in the girls 200 individual.

In the boys 50 freestyle, Harper was 5th and Blanchard was 7th.

Stephanie Connell swam 6th in the girls 50 freestyle.

Blanchard was 3rd in the 100 butterfly and Tyler Coker was 7th and Douglas, 8th, in the boys 100 freestyle.

Tift had three finish in the top eight of the girls 100 freestyle — Mobley (3rd), Ryland (4th) and Seymour (6th).

Harper came in 3rd in the boys 500 freestyle with Wyatt finishing 6th. The latter would be 4th in the 100 backstroke. In the girls event, Connell added a 5th place finish.

McElroy was 4th in the boys 100 breaststroke and was on the 400-yard freestyle relay squad with Douglas, Mucha and Harper that came in 3rd place.

In the girls 400 freestyle relay, the winning foursome was joined by two others for points. Coming in 5th were Sarah Lawson, Megan Bowen, Leilani Fonsah and Golden and in 7th were Emily Huggins, Lauren Abbott, Bryce Payne and Karina Delgado.