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By Mark Brock
DCSD Athletics Specialist
ATLANTA–Southwest DeKalb County High School senior Pilar King became the 15th DeKalb girls’ swimmer to become a three-time gold medal winner at the recent GHSA State Swimming and Diving Championships with a pair of big wins at the Georgia Tech Aquatic Center in Atlanta.
King, a University of Arizona signee, swam to the gold in both the 50-yard freestyle and the 100-yard backstroke to climb into that 15th spot in the long storied history of DeKalb County swimming history. She is the first Southwest DeKalb swimmer to claim three gold medals in state competition.
The senior bested her DeKalb County Championships record of 23.96 by swimming to a 22.57 to capture gold in the 50 freestyle. King’s silver medal time of a year ago was 23.25.
King returned to the pool two hours later to repeat as the 100 backstroke champion with a time of 54.29. Her time was 0.51 seconds faster than a year ago.
King’s performance put Southwest DeKalb in a tie for 16th out of 25 teams.
Druid Hills claimed a Top 15 spot in the girls’ team standings with 96 points led by a pair of fourth place finishes in the 50 freestyle (23.84) and 100 butterfly (58.73) by Ansley Rollins.
On the boys’ side, Druid Hills claimed another Top 15 spot by scoring in seven events for a total of 95 to take 14th overall.
Class 5A
Chamblee picked up a pair of Top 10 finishes to lead the Class 5A contingent from DeKalb at the State Championships.
The girls put up 205 points to finish fifth overall to follow up on their DeKalb County title from January.
Chamblee’s climb to fifth place was led by Kate Bolte’s silver medal finish in the 100 backstroke (1:03.99) and fifth place finishes by Mena Alexandrova (200 freestyle, 1:53.26) and Brooke Kehl (200 IM, 2:09.85).
Lakeside finished 14th in the girls’ standings with 95 points led by Lily Ladzinske’s silver medal in the one-meter diving event.
Dunwoody was 21st overall with 47 points with no Top 8 finishers.
The Chamblee boys claimed a seventh place finish in 5A with 161 points. Garrett Peters led the way for the Bullsharks with a fourth place finish in the backstroke (51.99) and a seventh place in the 200 IM (1:57.81). The 400 freestyle relay team finished fifth in 3:18.44.
The Lakeside Vikings finished just behind the Bullsharks in eighth (149) led by sixth place finishes by Jake Krick (1-meter diving, 395.50) and Sawyer Dixon (100 breaststroke, 59.64).
Dunwoody was in a tie for 18th in the boys’ standings with 61 points led by Graham Chang who finished sixth in the 200 freestyle (1:44.47) and seventh in the 100 freestyle (48.55)
Photo by Mark Brock, Athletics Specialist for DeKalb County School District.