Hill climbs high as records tumble at NI event
Manawatu’s Xavier Hill was one of the top swimmers at the North Island championships at Freyberg Pool at the weekend.
The 16-year-old Palmerston North Boys’ High School swimmer broke three meeting records on Saturday and was first equal in the overall points for boys swimmers, tied with Bronson Lloyd from Tawa College.
Hill set records in the 50m breaststroke, 100m breaststroke and 100m butterfly.
Andrew Jeffcoat from Hamilton Boys’ High School was third and the next-best Manawatu swimmer was Freyberg High School’s Ryan Cutler, who was sixth equal with George Dorrington of Scots College.
The top girls swimmer was 15-year-old Chelsea Edwards from Chilton St James School in Wellington, who set four meet records in the 50m freestyle, 100m freestyle, 200m freestyle and 50m butterfly.
Edwards tied for overall girls points with Gina Mccarthy from Waikato Diocesan School, who set records in the 200m backstroke and 200m individual medley.
In third place was Paris Cutler from Freyberg and Mya Rasmussen from Palmerston North Girls’ High School was fifth.
The top overall girls school was Waikato Diocesan by a long way, with Girls’ High second and Chilton St James third. Freyberg were fourth. Napier Girls’ High School, who were the top team a the national secondary schools championships last year, didn’t come to the North Island event due to other sports commitments.
Wellington College was the top boys school, with Napier Boys’ High School second and Palmerston North Boys’ High School third. Horowhenua College was 23rd. In the combined points, Waikato Diocesan won, followed by Wellington College and then Napier Boys’. Boys’ High were fourth, Girls’ High fifth and Freyberg 13th. There were 231 entries, which was near capacity at Freyberg Pool.