The Batesville Pioneers are Arkansas’s Class 5A boys swimming and diving state champions for the second consecutive year.
The Pioneers captured their third state title in the last four years and the first back-to-back in the program’s history at the Russellville Aquatics Center last weekend.
The Pioneers scored 319 team points, led by senior Daniel Latus, who scored 29 points, to beat Russellville (259) and Lake Hamiton (238).
Latus, a member of two of the three relays the Pioneers swept, also placed third in the 500 Free and sixth in the 100 Breast. For Latus, this was his third state title in high school swimming.
“Coming into the meet, we knew it would be a dogfight. The projected score based on the entries projected a 1-3 points margin between Russellville and us,” said assistant coach Khang Nguyen. “We were already behind due to not having any divers competing from the previous day.”
The Pioneers entered the second day down 33 points to Russellville and 20 points to Lake Hamilton.
Despite being behind, the Pioneers did not let the deficit affect their performances. Instead, they quickly won the first relay to cut the deficit. Then, the Pioneers started rolling and scoring points in individual events shortly after that.
“Our team understood that we needed every point we could get,” said Nguyen. The majority of the points came from the relays, which were doubled points. The Pioneers swept all three relays (200 Medley, 200 Free, and 400 Free) to score 120 points of the team total.
Other notable points came from junior Ethan Byler, the state champion in the 100 Yard Butterfly; sophomore Dewey Rodgers finished second in the 50 Free; and sophomore Ethan Insell who finished fourth in the 200 Yard Free.
The 5A East Conference Championship was held earlier in February at the Batesville Community and Aquatics Center (see an image of the Pioneers at the meet below). Taking home the titles were the Batesville Pioneers and the Greene County Tech Lady Eagles.
The Pioneers captured their fourth consecutive conference title with 518 team points, 160 points ahead of second place, Greene County Tech. The Lady Pioneers finished fourth with 169 team points.
Dewey Rodgers (SO) led the Pioneers in individual points with 40 total. Rodgers claimed four first places with two individuals and two relays. In the 200 Yard Freestyle, Rodgers dropped almost 3 seconds with a finish time of 1:57.87 to win the event.
Penelope Nelms (Jr.) finished with 20 individual points to lead the Lady Pioneers. Nelms competed in four events and claimed one first-place and three second-place finishes. She won her only individual event in the 500 Yard Freestyle with a time of 6:25.46. Nelms shaved off 23 seconds in her 500 Freestyle.
Information and images provided by the Batesville School District
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