GREENSBORO, N.C. – Over the past weekend, the best age group swimmers in North Carolina descended upon the Greensboro Aquatic Center for this year’s Age Group Championships. While the eventual winner of the meet was the powerhouse known as SwimMAC Carolina, there was an overwhelming spotlight placed on a member of the eighth place team.
Amanda Ray, a 12 year old swimming for the New Wave Swim Team out of Raleigh provided a medal haul that rivaled Phelps’ from Beijing. She would end the weekend with nine total state titles while breaking three meet and two state records along the way. She also finished with the High Point award for her age group.
She started off the weekend with a victory in the 400-meter IM with a time of 5:18.22, a full five seconds faster than her nearest competitor.
Ray would follow that up with arguably her best swim of the meet by taking home the gold in the 200-meter butterfly with a time of 2:22.97. That time was good enough to break the state record by more than two seconds. The most impressive part of that swim was that she absolutely obliterated the competition, winning the event by 20 full seconds.
But the winning would not stop there for Ray, she later found herself on top of the podium in the 50- meter freestyle with a winning time of 28.07.
Her second meet record would come in the 100-meter butterfly where again a gold medal found its way around her neck with a time of 1:05.23.
Continuing to show her versatility, Ray then swam her way to a first place finish in the 400-meter freestyle. She finished with a time of 4:39.42.
In the 200-meter freestyle, she would waste no time earning yet another state title as she took home top honors in that event with a time of 2:11.57.
She would also sweep the IM events at the meet by taking home a victory in the 200-meter distance with a time of 2:29.06.
Her next state record would come in the 50-meter butterfly where she found herself atop the podium with a winning time of 29.48 breaking a three year old state record formally held by Kayla Tennant.
She rounded out her phenomenal weekend with a victory in the 100-meter freestyle, winning by just a half a second with a time of 1:00.91.
Ray’s performance over the weekend was good enough to have her selected for the NC Zone Team that will be competing in Tupelo, Mississippi the first week in August.
Swimming news courtesy of New Wave Swim Team.
Congrats to Amanda! Also, worth noting is Rye Ulett who won 11 events at Georgia Age group state! She won everything she swam excluding relays.