Scotland’s Sydney Eury swims in St. Andrews’ O’Herron Pool during practice on Monday.
Brandon Hodge | The Laurinburg Exchange
Scotland swimming coach Aliechia Post, left, and Taylor Johnson, right, pose for a picture after Johnson received the 2022-23 Sandhills Athletic Conference Women’s Swimmer of the Year award during practice on Monday.
Brandon Hodge | The Laurinburg Exchange
Scotland’s Jack Herr swims in St. Andrews’ O’Herron Pool during practice on Monday.
Brandon Hodge | The Laurinburg Exchange
Scotland’s Elisha Dockery swims in St. Andrews’ O’Herron Pool during practice on Monday.
Brandon Hodge | The Laurinburg Exchange
Scotland’s Jack Herr, left, and Taylor Johnson, right, swim in St. Andrews’ O’Herron Pool during practice on Monday.
Brandon Hodge | The Laurinburg Exchange
LAURINBURG — Scotland men’s and women’s swimming coach Aliechia Post feels this has been a rebuilding year.
Her teams have hung around the top half of the Sandhills Athletic Conference through four meets, though.
After a year in which women’s sophomore swimmer Taylor Johnson went to states and four others as well as Johnson — Caycee Bert, Laura Wlodarczak, Bailey Brink and men’s swimmer Jack Herr — made it to the 3A Central Regional, Scotland’s swim teams have still had plenty of success a season later.
“This year has kind of been a rebuilding year for us,” said Post, who is in her fourth season as the coach of both squads. “Our girls have consistently been third place, and our boys, it depends on the day; they either come in fourth or fifth.
“We had a lot of seniors graduate last year … and we have some swimmers that are brand new to swimming. So, we actually are seeing a lot of progress and improvement each week in each swim meet because we have a lot of kids that started out not really understanding swimming or knowing the strokes very well. And we’re seeing time improvements every single week.”
Freshmen Rylan Priest and Mavin Mackenzie, along with junior Elisha Dockery and seniors Herr, Kishawn Pate and Ricky Zhang, make up Scotland’s men’s team; and Johnson, juniors Sydney Eury, Zoey Bowman and Bailey Brink and seniors Emma Houg, Faith Dockery and Sonalya Thomas, who joined the team recently, are the Lady Scots swimmers.
Johnson has already qualified for regionals in three different events. Johnson is eligible for the 200-yard individual medley at the Feb. 3 Central Regional after getting a season-best time of two minutes and 28.38 seconds at the Dec. 6 SAC meet, the 100-yard backstroke after a personal best 1:12.82 and the 500-yard freestyle.
At last year’s state championships, Johnson, the 2022-23 SAC Women’s Swimmer of the Year, placed 16th in the 200-yard individual medley at 2:28.07 and 20th in the 500-yard freestyle at 5:59.95.
”Just got to stay where I started,” Johnson said. “It would be terrible to go down from there.”
Bowman has a shot to make states for the Lady Scots as well, after she made the consideration time for regionals on Nov. 29 in the 50-yard freestyle at 29.40, also a personal best for her.
Two men’s swimmers for Scotland already claimed regional consideration times, too, with Dockery posting a personal best of 1:22.35 in the 100-yard breaststroke and Herr getting personal bests in the 50-yard freestyle with 26.93 and the 100-yard freestyle with 1:00.61 on Dec. 6.
“It was my goal to make (regionals) in at least one (event),” Herr said. “I want to be higher ranked, so I need to swim faster. But I’ve met my goal. Now, I’ve set other goals to continue to get better.”
Scotland’s swimmers still have three more meets, including the SAC Championship on Jan. 27, to try and make regionals and help improve their teams’ positioning within the conference; the Lady Scots are third currently, and the men are fourth.
Their next meet is Wednesday at the James A. Leach Aquatic Center in Raeford.
Brandon Hodge is the sports editor for The Laurinburg Exchange. He can be reached at 910-506-3171 or by email at bhodge@laurinburgexch.wpenginepowered.com. Follow him on X/Twitter at @BrandonHSports.