by Chris Hunt and Aaron Garcia

Hough High School swimmers won six events during the 4A Western Regional meet at Huntersville Family Fitness & Aquatics on Feb. 5.

The Huskies finished first in both the boys and girls 200-yard medley relays. The girls team of Ali Kitchens, Heather Merritt, Payton Schrum and Shannon Bauer put up a time of 1 minute, 51.77 seconds, beating runner-up Providence by three-tenths of a second. Patrick Cowley, Andrew Botelho, Peter Brumm and John Manchester finished with a time of 1:39.85 for the Hough boys. Kitchens (100 backstroke), Brumm (100 butterfly) and Manchester (500 freestyle) also won individual events. Hough’s Charles Mitchell won the boys diving competition.

North Mecklenburg’s Molly Sanborn also won a girls individual regional championship, taking the 200 freestyle while holding off a run by Merritt. Sanborn added a third-place finish in the 500 freestyle.

Hopewell’s Lee Ward collected a silver and a bronze in the boys 100 butterfly and 100 breaststroke, respectively. North Meck’s Jake Stilley was third in the boys 200 IM.

The Hough boys finished highest among area teams, coming in third with 249 points. North Meck’s boys were seventh with 123 points, and Hopewell was eighth with 119. Providence won the title with 433.5 points, followed by Lake Norman (301.5), a team that finished second to the Huskies in the I-MECK 4A meet in January.

The Hough girls made the top five with 238 points. They were 99 points behind regional champ Providence. North Meck was sixth with 224 points, while Hopewell came in ninth at 103.5 points.