Mississippi State High School Championships

By Brian Savard

CLEVELAND, Mississippi, November 2. FIVE records fell in men's action at the Mississippi High School Championships while an eighth grader doubled up on her competitors.

Team Scores
Oxford's women ended Tupelo's run of state titles by capturing the first-place team honor with 345 points. Tupelo placed second with 322 points while Madison Central raked in 256 points for third.

Tupelo outswam the men's competition with a state-title mark of 293 points. Madison Central landed the second-place spot (228) while Oak Grove garnered third-place honors with 217 points.

Women's Individual Results
Oxford won both the 200 medley and 200 freestyle relays. The Oxford grouping of Alma Burwell, Catherine Freeland, Frances Sullivan-Gonzales and Cathy Chen combined talents to outlast Starkville in the 200 medley with a winning time of 1:57.22. Sullivan-Gonzales, Nicole Robinson, Amy Nichols and Chen beat out the 200 freestyle relay competition, finishing the race in 1:43.80.

Eighth-grader Laura Smith from Brandon rolled the dice by swimming back-to-back events and cashed in on each, earning the top time in the 100 freestyle (54.31) as well as the 500 freestyle (5:16.50). Smith stood as the only female in the meet to win two individual events.

Men's Individual Results
Oak Grove's 200 medley relay team of Clay Crawford, Alex Rapetti, Logan Miller and Preston Grover kicked off the men's meet with a state-record performance of 1:43.71. Biloxi set the former standard in 2003 with a time of 1:43.88.

Timot Dasinger from Madison Central reset his 2006 standard in the 200 freestyle, handily beating the competition with a 1:43.85 time. Dasinger also edged out the 500 freestyle field, clocking a 4:50.35.

Johnson Knox of Starkville covered the two-lap 50 freestyle event in a record 21.59. Oxford's Jeffrey Phillips, currently a freshman swimmer at Georgia Tech, held the former mark of 21.59, which he set at last fall's state meet. Knox also earned a gold medal in the 100 freestyle (47.60).

Jake Linkous from Cleveland set a new standard in the 100 backstroke, touching the wall in 53.52. John Henry Dasinger, a Madison Central alumnus and a current swimmer at the University of Connecticut, set the former record in 2004 with a 53.82 time.

Tupelo's quartet of Robert Fisher, John Nelson Huffman, John Servati and Matt Williams lowered the 200 freestyle relay record, clocking a 1:32.58. Tupelo's 2003 200 freestyle relay foursome held the former mark.

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