ATLANTA — The Walton boys swimming team won only one event during the Class AAAAAAA state swimming meet at the Georgia Tech Aquatic Center on Saturday, but that didn’t keep it from routing the competition.
Depth was the key, and with numerous second, third and fourth place finishes, the Raiders got the biggest win of all — its second straight state championship.
Walton finished with 493 points, which was more than 100 points better than second place North Gwinnett, which collected 377.5.
It was a dominant performance from the Raiders, who prevailed by only eight points a year ago.
Brookwood was third with 355 points, with South Forsyth (274.5) and Denmark (192) rounding out the top five. Kennesaw Mountain (126) finished ninth, Hillgrove (113) 11th and Campbell (102) was 12th.
What helped Walton run away with it was qualifying all four swimmers for the finals in both sprint freestyle events, both distance freestyle events and the 200-yard individual medley.
“I knew that we had a pretty good chance, but didn’t know it would be this dominant,” Walton coach Ty Vernon said. “We had that one relay victory and just kept plugging away on the podium with a bunch of seconds and thirds. We brought back all our of our people in the majority of events and the points kept adding up.”