CONWAY — In a huge meet featuring some of the top Class 7A State contenders, the Bryant Lady Hornets finished fourth with 221 points, just four behind third-place Rogers, at the Conway Invitational at Hendrix College on Saturday.
Fayetteville won the 21-team meet with a whopping 521.5 points. Conway was second with 370 followed by Rogers (225), Bryant and Pulaski Academy (181). Bentonville, another power, only competed in the diving portion of the meet.
Bryant was not at full strength due to conflicting events and illness.
The Lady Hornets’ top performances garnered fourth-place finishes and, in all three of those events, Jessica Butler was involved. Individually, she was fourth in the 50-yard freestyle with a 27.31 and in the 100-yard free at 1:00.35.
She also contributed the anchor leg in the 200-yard freestyle relay that took fourth, joining Lara Kockaya, Erin Vaughn and Taylor Wilson on a 1:57.90 clocking.
That same quartet (in different order) was fifth in the 200 medley relay in a time of 2:11.21.
In the other relay, the 400 free, Dayanne Maldonado, Hailey Addison, Helen Woodham and Hannah Tennison turned in a 4:41.89 to take sixth.
Individually, Kockaya added fifth-place points in the 100-yard breast stroke, clocking in at 1:19.62, while Wilson’s 6:20.48 in the 500 free earned a sixth-place finish with Kockaya seventh in 6:21.37 and Woodham 11th in 7:13.83.
Wilson also led a Bryant trio in the 200 free, taking eighth in 2:27.13. Maldonado was ninth in 2:28.64 and Woodham was 13th in 2:41.63.
Erin Vaughn was 13th in the 100 butterfly with a time of 1:15.29. Maldonado was 15th in 1:17.13. Tennison, meanwhile, scored in the 200 individual medley and the 100-yard freestyle. In the former, she was 13th in 2:51.71. In the latter, she clocked in at 1:08.52 to take 14th.
The Lady Hornets also had second-team relay quartets score points. In the 200 medley, Erica Legate, Lucie Van Roekel, Jasmine Snell and Tennison were 15th with a 2:31.52 clocking. In the 200 free, it was Snell, Woodham, Sophie Williams and Maldonado taking 16th in 2:14.14.
Bryant is scheduled to compete again at a meet hosted by Benton this Thursday. A final home meet is set for Thursday, Feb. 1, with District set for Feb. 6 (diving at UCA) and Feb. 8 (swimming at Hendrix) at Conway.
