The Northwood swimming and diving teams kicked off their 2022-23 season Monday night with a tri-meet against Eastern Alamance and Orange High in Hillsborough. The Chargers defeated Eastern Alamance by a score of 152-111, but fell to Orange, 209-97.
Northwood is coming off a 2021-22 season that saw them finish third in the 3A girls swimming state championships. Unfortunately for the Chargers, they kicked off their new season Monday without two of their top girls swimmers — sophomore Abby Emrich and junior Maya Sipper — who skipped the meet in preparation of a big event for their club team this weekend. Emrich was one of the top Northwood swimmers last season as a freshman, finishing third in the 200-yard individual medley and fifth at the 100-yard butterfly at last year’s state meet.
Without Emrich in the pool, her older sister, Lauren Emrich, led the way for Northwood on Monday. The senior won the 200-yard individual medley in a time 2:33.41 and dominated the 100-yard breaststroke, winning in a time of 1:15.56, 15 seconds faster than the next-closest swimmer.
The other Northwood girl who earned a first-place finish Monday was senior Bianca Perez, who won the 500-yard freestyle in a time of 5:56.59. The second-place finisher in the race wrapped up over 30 seconds after Perez touched the wall for the final time.
On the boys side, senior Wiley Sikes won two events — the 200-yard individual medley (2:00.92) and the 500-yard freestyle (5:01.67). His younger brother, sophomore Jesse Sikes, finished second in both the 50-yard freestyle (24.03 seconds) and 100-yard freestyle (54.32 seconds).
In the relay races, Northwood finished second to orange in both the boys and girls 400-yard freestyle and the boys and girls 200-yard medley.
As things stand, Northwood does not have another swim meet for another month. The Chargers are scheduled to be back in action Jan. 5 against Cedar Ridge at the Orange County Sportsplex in Hillsborough.
Northwood practices as a team at the Ingram YMCA in Sanford. There are currently no available practice areas for the team inside the Town of Pittsboro.
Sports Editor Jeremy Vernon can be reached at jeremy@chathamnr.com or on Twitter at @jbo_vernon.