BY CLIFF SMELLEY
Telegraph Staff Writer
Union County High School sophomore Eva Whitehead qualified for the Class 1A swimming finals after earning a pair of top-10 finishes at the Region 1 finals, which were held Oct. 24 in Jacksonville.
Whitehead placed fifth in the 100-yard backstroke with a time of 59.20 seconds. Last year’s state runner-up, Lila Higgo of Bolles, won the event with a time of 54.19.
Bolles swimmers, in fact, occupied all of the top four spots ahead of Whitehead. Katherine Meyers-Labenz, who was sixth at last year’s state meet, placed second with a time of 56.71, while Elisabeth Erlendsdottir, who was seventh at state, was third with a time of 56.81. Sarah Burgstiner, who was 24th at last year’s state finals, had a fourth-place time of 57.76.
Whitehead also competed in the 200 individual medley, placing eighth with a time of 2:10.32, which was an improvement of three seconds from last year’s Region 1 finals.
Bolles’ Higgo, who was fourth at state last year, won the event with a time of 2:03. Four of the other swimmers who placed ahead of Whitehead competed at state last year as well: Bolles’ Ella Gotham and Sophia Joos, Episcopal’s Savannah Branon and Father Lopez’s Nelanee Fulton.
The state finals will be held Saturday, Nov. 4, at Florida Aquatics Swimming and Training in Ocala. Preliminaries begin at 9 a.m., followed by the finals at 5:30 p.m.
In a comparison of the qualifiers’ region times, Whitehead is the ninth seed in the 100 backstroke and the 20th seed in the 200 IM.
Whitehead competed in both events at state last year, finishing 20th in the 100 backstroke and 23rd in the 200 IM.
