Different year and different conference, but the same result for the Hickory High girls' swim team.
The Red Tornadoes cruised to a third straight conference championship at the Valdese Aquatic Club on Friday, winning the Northwestern 3A-4A title this time.
Hickory had 330 1/2 points to outscore second-place Watauga with 267 1/2 and third-place South Caldwell with 237. St. Stephens finished fourth with 212 points.
Watauga took home the boys' championship, edging South Caldwell, 312-300. Hickory finished third with 289 points and Hibriten was fourth with 249.
"Every person on the team contributed to this championship," said Hickory head coach Cathy Hitchcock. "That was in all the events, because it's important to score points even if you don't win the event."
The Hickory girls got off to a good start with sophomore Janie Kennedy winning the 200-yard freestyle with a time of two minutes, 7.95 seconds to finish just ahead of Fred T. Foard's Kirsten Consing (2:12.78).
"It was very exciting for me to come in here and win an event," Kennedy said. "It's all about having fun and winning makes it that much more fun."
Kennedy helped the Red Tornadoes later by scoring 15 points with a second-place finish in the 500-yard freestyle with a time of 5:40.20. Leah Watts of Fred T. Foard won that event with a time of 5:25.51 for her second win in as many tries.
Watts also won the 200-yard IM with a time of 2:17.74 to become the only multiple event winner in the girls' championships.
"The competition is always great at these events," Watts said. "I just do what I can to put up my best time in trying to do whatever I can to help my team win."
Junior Erin Lee was the only other girls' event winner for Hickory (100-yard freestyle in 59.65).
"Winning a title for the third straight year is extra special," Lee said. "It's just really exciting and then winning an individual event makes it even better because I wasn't sure whether or not I could do it."
Said Hitchcock: "This is just wonderful for us. That's what we set out to do when the season began and to accomplish it, well that's just a great thing."
On the boys' side, Watauga won the title without even winning an event.
The Pioneers won by adding up points in the second through eighth spots.
"This win was really special for us," said Watauga head coach David Gragg. "We had exams after Christmas and with the weather we've had in Boone, we pretty much went four weeks without having a practice.
"For our kids to come back from all that, take exams and accomplish what they did. I couldn't be more proud of them.
Watauga had five second place finishes, which carried 15 points each.
"We don't always have the fastest kids," Gragg said. "But we can always try to outscore them and this time around that's exactly what we did."
Three boys won multiple events with Hickory's Graham Williams taking first in the 200-yard freestyle and the 500-yard freestyle.
"My times were really good," Williams said. "There is some tough competition here and thankfully I've been able to do well in the events I have participated in.
"Numbers matter as Watauga showed in winning the meet without an event winner. We will just try to keep improving and maybe next time around it'll be our turn to win a championship."
Hibriten's Kyle Hites won two events, the 200-yard IM (2:03.07) and the 100-yard breaststroke (1:01.60), while St. Stephens' Sava Tureanu won the 100-yard freestyle (51.00) and the 100-yard backstroke (1:00.00).
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