Local swimmers, divers bring home top state meet finishes

Swimmers and divers from both Spain Park High School and Hoover High School represented their schools the first weekend in December at the AHSAA swimming and diving state championships at Auburn University.

Of the nine athletes who qualified for finals from Spain Park, two walked away with state titles: Zachary El-Fallah, in the boys 1-meter diving, and Ward Lockhart, in the boys 500-yard freestyle. 

El-Fallah won his title by 56.25 points, after coming in second in 2017.

According to the AHSAA website, he is the first Spain Park diver to win the 1-meter championship.

Lockhart won his event and broke the 6A/7A record twice — once in prelims and once in finals. His winning time was 4 minutes, 36.87 seconds. Lockhart also won this event in 2017. 

Both El-Fallah and Lockhart are seniors. 

Lockhart also placed second in the 200-yard freestyle (1:42.24), similar to last year, and teammate Abby Brown Strohmeier placed fifth in the girls 200-yard freestyle (1:55.13). Strohmeier also swam in the 100-yard freestyle and took third (52.76), while fellow Jags Austin Stallworth, Justin Zhang and Evan Trueb earned third (47.57), sixth (48.97) and 16th (51.70) in the boys event, respectively.

Stallworth also took second in the 50-yard freestyle (21.75) and was part of the boys freestyle relay teams that included Lockhart, Zhang and Trueb. Together, they took second (1:28.40) in the 200-yard freestyle relay and third (3:15.65) in the 400-yard freestyle relay after dropping nearly a second from their prelims swim.

Zhang also dropped about a second and a half in the 100-yard backstroke to earn ninth (54.69).

On the girls side, Spain Park’s Katie Groves, Taylor Trible, Carson Muir and Strohmeier took 10th in the 200-yard freestyle relay (1:43.57).

Groves also swam an individual event, the 100-yard butterfly, and placed eighth (59.73). Muir placed 10th in the 200-yard individual medley (2:16.55) and fourth in the 500-yard freestyle (5:19.76).

The Bucs had four swimmers and one diver compete in the finals at Auburn.

Caroline Lawrence placed in the top five in both of her freestyle swims: third in the 200-yard freestyle after dropping three seconds from her prelims time for a 1:52.84, and fourth in the 100-yard freestyle with a 52.80. Teammate Erica Han took seventh in the 100-yard freestyle (54.31), while she and fellow Buc Kathryn Chambers placed fifth (24.77) and 16th (26.87) in the 50-yard freestyle, respectively.

Hoover swimmer Ariana Zamani swam the 500-yard freestyle and finished third with a time of 5:14.57, after dropping nearly three and a half seconds from her prelims swim. She also took seventh in the 200-yard individual medley (2:13.89).

The Bucs relay team of Han, Zamani, Chambers and Lawrence swam in both freestyle relays, too. 

Together, they swam a 1:42.03 in the 200-yard freestyle relay, to take fifth, and dropped just over two seconds for a 3:44.92 in the 400-yard freestyle relay, to place sixth.

Hoover’s only diver for the championship meet, Owen Fuller, earned sixth in the boys 1-meter diving with a score of 266.65.

For the complete list of results, go to ahsaa.com.