Greetings from outside the Botetourt Family YMCA in Daleville, Virginia. For the first time this season I have blocked off a day to try and educate myself about the inner workings of a Swim meet day for the Boys and Girls that represent Carroll County High School 🏫.

I will do my best to absorb as much information as possible without getting in the way this evening. I have some many questions about how a meet day works, including the pre-meet warm ups are handled.

The Alleghany County bus arrived at 5:15 and my understanding is the competition gets underway at 7pm. Time to see about going inside and looking around.

The good news I have found the right place and now have a seat just outside the glass at the Waldron Foundation Lap Pool.

Four schools are set to compete in the event tonight including Staunton River, Alleghany, Lord Botetourt and our Cavaliers. I am assuming that being we are a few blocks from LBHS that this is their home pool and they are the host school.

While I wait for it to start I will share what I know about High School Swimming 🏊‍♂️ and Diving competition. It won’t take long as my High School didn’t have it as a sport and somehow in forty plus years of covering Sports until today I’ve never been staring at a Lap Pool waiting for a meet.

Carroll County has both a Boys team and a Girls swim team but doesn’t compete in the diving portion of the Sport. Practices are held right around the corner from the High School in Hillsville but cannot host a meet there because the pool is not set up for diving.

Wytheville is the closest facility to CCHS were a meet can be held and finding nearby meets tend to be a challenge for the Cavaliers.

Tonight’s meet for example is 83 miles and 1 hour 25 minutes from CCHS and a start time of 7:00pm. Not sure how long a four team will last but crunching the estimated numbers as to when the Student Athletes will get back home will be late this evening.

The flow of the event is a story in itself. It truly has a Family feel to it.

Earnie Harris and his wife Stacy are from here in Daleville and I explained to them my desire to educate myself on the process involved in High School Swimming. Stacy eventually had to leave our conversation because she is one of the volunteer timers ⏲️.

I’m taking plenty of notes while watching our swimmers 🏊‍♂️ compete. An evening in the pool has a very unique environment to it and I will do my best to describe it over the next couple of days.

Stories to follow

Getting more information about this contest will be a bit of a challenge but it will happen and when it does I will post it here.

The team returns to action Friday night at the Hillsville Middle School when they host the Knights of James River.

Sometimes I just have to laugh at my own level of dedication to things that I believe in. It dawned on me at 11:30 p.m. that if I wanted to know what happened with our JV Boys that I could use the site to watch the game from start to finish.

The game should be over by 1am but I will provide quarter by quarter recaps.

FIRST QUARTER :

CCHS jumped out to a 3-0 lead and the two teams took turns scoring with Isaiah Easter getting the last basket to give the lead at the break 11-9

SECOND QUARTER :

The effort was there throughout the second period for the Cavs but the ball just wouldn’t fall. Radford scored 24 unanswered points to start the frame but CCHS bounced back just before the half.

Jay Burnette made two free throws and Dane Leonard converted a back door cut for a lay-up to give the Cavaliers the final four points.

At the Break – Radford 33, CCHS 15

Cavaliers bounce back nicely, taking the 3rd quarter by a 9-6 margin. A 13-2 run crossed over the quarters.

Easter scored five straight at one point and Landen Puckett plus Burnette went 2 for 2 from the line to account for the Cavaliers points.

FOURTH QUARTER :

Easter adds six more and Leonard hits a pretty floater that pulled the Cavs to within 13 at 45-32 and the Bobcats close out the scoring with five free throws for a 50-32 final.

CCHS played the second half to a 17-17 draw and outscored Radford 21-17 after the deep run 🏃‍♂️ of 24-0 that proved too much to overcome.