St. Al’s Olivia and Matthew Busby medal at MAIS state swim meet
Published 5:56 pm Wednesday, September 25, 2024
FLOWOOD — St. Aloysius’ super swimming siblings swam swell.
Matthew and Olivia Busby both medaled, finishing third in the boys’ 200 yard individual medley and the girls’ 50 yard freestyle, respectively, at the MAIS Overall Swim Meet on Wednesday.
Olivia Busby, a junior, added this bronze medal to the one she got last year in the 200 IM. She finished sixth in the 200 IM this time.
In the 50 freestyle, she clocked a solid time of 26.72 seconds — a second and a half better than her seed time — but couldn’t catch Mary Louise Russ of Jackson Prep.
Russ won in an MAIS-record 24.98 seconds, and Hartfield Academy’s Lily Sammons was second in 25.55. Russ beat the state record that Sammons set in 2022 by more than half a second.
“It feels great,” Busby said. “I got one (medal) last year and I was really hoping to get it in the same event, but I got it in the 50 free and I’m pretty proud of that. I wasn’t expecting it.”
Matthew Busby added the boys’ 200 yard individual medley medal to the impressive collection he’s assembled over the past four years. The junior now has seven state meet medals — five in relays, and two individuals — since 2021.
Busby also finished fifth in the 50 freestyle on Wednesday, with a time of 24.78 seconds. His time of 2 minutes, 18.91 seconds in the IM was a whopping four seconds ahead of his previous personal best.
Chris Brown of Madison-St. Joe won the gold medal in the IM in 2:13.15, and Carson Clarke of Madison-Ridgeland Academy was second in 2:15.89. Busby said he was just trying to keep pace with Brown and it carried him to an outstanding performance.
“I tried to stay on Chris Brown’s feet the whole race. There’s no way I could beat him, but I could at least stay with him,” Busby said. “He kind of got me on the breaststroke leg, but I feel like I stayed with him the whole race.”
The Busbys were St. Al’s only medalists Wednesday, but coach Wilson Carroll said most of his swimmers chopped seconds off their personal best times. With a young roster going against a very strong field, that was what he was hoping for as much as medals and championships.
Freshman Elle Larson had two top-ten finishes. She was sixth in the girls’ 100 yard backstroke, with a time of 1:16.98; and seventh in the 100 yard freestyle, with a time of 1:08.07.
Eighth-grader Grace Edwards finished 12th out of 44 swimmers in the girls’ 100 yard freestyle, and cut a second off her seed time to finish in 1:15.16.
Larson, Edwards and Olivia Busby also joined freshman Autumn Rice on the girls’ 200 yard medley relay that finished ninth.
Caleb Jones had a seventh-place finish in the boys’ 100 yard breaststroke, with a time of 1:22.11 that was nearly two seconds ahead of his previous best. He also placed 15th out of 85 swimmers in the 50 freestyle, with a time of 28.39 seconds.
Another eighth-grader, Robert Lucas, chopped four seconds off his time in the boys’ 100 yard freestyle.
“We’re in a rebuilding program. We lost seven seniors. So we’re going up against kids that are older than us in every single event,” Carroll said. “When Matthew and Olivia can get on the podium, they’re beating a lot of people that are older than them and I’m super proud of them.
“Everybody’s cutting time,” he added. “That’s all you can ask as a coach. It’s been a tough meet for us this year, but things are looking good. The future is going to be fine.”