By Bob Sutton
Special to The Alamance News
Madisyn Upton, a freshman from Southern Alamance, won two of the sprint events in the Class 3-A swimming and diving championships.
This might just be the start of what Upton said of her goal to see swimming become a bigger deal in the area.
“I really want to make a name for swimming in my community and my school in general,” Upton said.
Her latest victories came Friday at Triangle Aquatic Center in Cary.
Upton’s winning time of 2 minutes, 8.38 seconds in the 200-yard individual medley reflected a personal-best mark and was more than two seconds faster than runner-up Kathryn Cinson of Fred T. Foard.
“The best was definitely the 200 IM because I wasn’t seeded (first) by a wide margin,” Upton said. “I knew I would have some work to do. I was looking to try to drop some time.”
Upton won the 100 butterfly in 56.63 seconds – a full second faster than Lake Norman Charter’s Campbelle Cyrus.
She said she shook off nerves from early in the competition when the preliminaries were about to begin.
“I was shaking in the blocks,” she said. “Then I had a terrible turn. . . It took a while to calm down.”
Upton, 15, said she has been in competitive swimming in some form for about 10 years since participating in summer meets with Olde Forest Racquet Club in Elon. She later spent time with the YMCA/Burlington Aquatic Center program and now goes once or twice a week to train with the Greensboro Community YMCA Swim team.
Upton, the daughter of Alison and Travis Upton, has a younger brother and sister who’ve also shown interest in swimming. She came through E.M. Holt Elementary School and Southern Middle School.
Upton was on the high school’s cross country team last fall. Swimming, though, is a priority – something she said comes with internal pressure “to keep getting better constantly.”
Other swimmers from schools in Alamance County had solid performances.
Kensley Gasaway of Western ended up 10th in the 500 freestyle in 5:36.46.
Western’s Elizabeth Merlette was 12th in the 100 butterfly in 1:04.23 and she tied for 13th in the 200 freestyle (2:05.60).
On the boys’ side, Eamon Hipps of Western was 10th in the 50 freestyle in 22.78 (after a preliminary time of 22.65). He tied for 10th in the 100 freestyle at 50.39 seconds, though he had been ninth in the preliminaries.
Liam Miller of Williams placed 11th in the 100 breaststroke in 1:05.23.
Daniel Doss of Western ended up 14th in the 100 butterfly in 55.81.
Lake Norman Charter was team champion in both the boys’ and girls’ divisions.
In Saturday’s Class 1-A/2-A meet, Southeast Alamance’s Ben Alonso was 13th in the boys’ 200 individual medley in 2:18.04.
