By By Rocky Higginbotham/The Meridian Star
July 15, 2001
The Meridian Invitational Swim Meet has gone MAD.
The MAD team the Mississippi Aquatic Dogfish took over the meet in dominating fashion Saturday at Highland Park, pushing their lead to more than 200 points.
MAD now sits in first place with 589 total points, while the Delta State University Aquatics squad is a distant second with 364.
The South Mississippi Surf is third with 336, while the Meridian Swim Association is fourth in the 16-team Long Course event with 177 points.
Events 15 through 70 were held during Saturday's competition, with the final day of action set to begin today at 8:15 a.m.
Michael Gray of MSA also went mad during the Saturday afternoon session, racking up three first-place finishes.
Gray won the Boys 100m Long Course Freestyle event with a time of 57.96, beating a pair of college competitors in the process. The 17-year-old from Northeast Lauderdale also won the Boys 100m Long Course Backstroke race with a time of 1:09.46, as well as the Boys 200m Long Course Fly with a time of 2:26.47 and he was just 14/100ths of a second behind Elliot J. Meador of DSUA in the Boys 200m Long Course Freestyle.
Christie Vaughn and David Moody were another pair of big winners for MSA during the evening competition.
Vaughn was second in the Girls 200m Long Course Breast with a time of 3:14.66, and the 15-year old also placed fifth in both the Girls 100m and 800m Long Course Freestyle events.
Vaughn was sixth in the Girls 200m Long Course Freestyle with a time of 2:30.36, while Lesa Jackson and Sarah Lisenbe were eighth and ninth, respectively, in the Girls 13-14 100m Long Course Backstroke.
Moody, 15, was third in the Boys 200m Long Course Breast with a time of 3:14.32 and ninth in the Boys 100m Long Course Freestyle.
Sixteen-year-old Ellis Eifert was sixth in the Boys 800m Long Course Freestyle; while the MSA team of Vaughn, Lisenbe, Jackson and Holly Corbitt was second in the Girls 400m Long Course Free Relay.
Corbitt, 11, and 7-year-old Anna Eifert had plenty of success in the morning session.
Corbitt was seventh in the Girls 11-12 50m and 100m Long Course Freestyle; fourth in the 50m Breast and fifth in the 100m Fly. Eifert placed fifth in both the 50m Free and Breast in the Girls 8-under division, while MSA's Austin Moody was sixth in the Boys 9-10 100m Back.
Rocky Higginbotham is a sports writer for The Meridian Star. E-mail him at rhigginbotham@themeridianstar.com.