By Duncan Nixon
Correspondent
Swimming is a popular winter sport at many high schools in Central Virginia. However, very few high schools have their own pool. Fluvanna County High School is fortunate to be able to utilize the quality pool at nearby Fork Union Military Academy (FUMA) for practices and home meets for a fee. Interestingly, Louisa County High School also practices at the FUMA pool. Those familiar with Central Virginia geography realize how far it is from Louisa High to FUMA – it’s quite a bus ride.
On Jan. 25, the Fluco swimmers hosted Jefferson District rivals Monticello High, Western Albemarle and Charlottesville High at FUMA. Fluco Coach Mitchell Pace said before the meet that his boys team is in a rebuilding year, and that was shown in the results.
The boys did not have a lot of top performances, but the Fluco girls did turn in some good results. In the difficult 200-meter individual medley, Alexandra Fuller finished in first for the Flucos in a time of 2:26.37 which was over 13 seconds better than the second-place time. Fuller was also first in the difficult 100-meter butterfly. In this race, she won by more than eight seconds, which is a pretty wide margin in a 100-meter event. In the girls 100-meter backstroke event, Abigail Ford took third place and her teammate Valle Altherr took fourth place. In the girls 200-meter freestyle relay, the Flucos finished in second, trailing by less than one second per swimmer. This squad consisted of Fuller, Sophie Pace, Reese Yowell and Brenna Rea. Rea turned in a good individual performance with a fourth-place finish in the 200-meter freestyle event. She was third in the finish, if multiple finishers from one school are discounted.
The boys team’s top performers were Tyler Davis with a fourth place finish in the 200-meter freestyle who was only a second and a half out of third, and James Johnson with fifth in the 100-meter backstroke. The boys 200-meter freestyle relay team also swam well. The team consisted of Davis, Ivan Patchett, Hayden Bridge and Mitchell Messier. Similarly, the boys 400-meter freestyle relay team did well. It consisted of Davis, Johnson, Brandon Watkins and Aaron Fairbanks. They finished third, if each school had only one team in the competition.
There are a lot of swim and dive competitions coming up in a short period of time. On Feb. 1, the Flucos took on Orange and Louisa County at FUMA, which are also Jefferson District schools. On Feb. 3, they are scheduled to compete against Charlottesville and Monticello at the Charlottesville YMCA.
The Region dive competition is scheduled for Feb. 4 at the Charlottesville YMCA, with the swim competition on Feb. 7 at the same venue.
