Mason Hunter has recordbreaking weekend at state

It was a fair bet that Rome High School senior Mason Hunter was going to have a good swim at some point during the two-day GHSA Swimming and Diving State Championships.

But for the second, and final, time, the Michigan commit set the bar high in Friday’s Class 1-5A boys’ 100- yard breaststroke preliminaries and then moved it again in the finals on Saturday. Only it wasn’t just a school record, it was the GHSA state mark.

Rome swimmers competed against the top contenders in the state at Georgia Tech’s McAuley Aquatic Center in Atlanta.

Hunter zoomed out in the prelims at Georgia Tech and cut his seed time by nearly two seconds, breaking the state record with a time of 54.73 seconds.

About 24 hours later, he did it again, this time coming in at 54.28 seconds and repeating as the GHSA 1-5A 100 breaststroke state champion.

But that wasn’t his only celebration of the day.

Hunter won the 200 individual medley earlier on Saturday, finishing in 1:53.41, a new school record.

He also was part of Rome’s state championship 200 medley relay team, which included Samson Mumber, Kent Schirmacher and Kenta Davis. The group broke their own school record in the finals and took first with a time of 1:35.60.

Mumber, meanwhile, kept the momentum going with a third place in the boys’ 100 backstroke, coming in at 50.94 seconds — a new Rome High record.

Overall, Rome’s boys finished with 221 points to come in fifth among all Class 4A-5A teams.