Fallon's Christian Nemeth competes in the 200-yard individual medley during last week's meet at Fernley.
FERNLEY — Despite a bizarre ruling, the Fallon girls swim team cruised to wins in their regular-season final on Friday in Fernley.
The Lady Wave rolled past the Vaqueros, 126-90, and Sage Ridge, 130-67. The Fallon boys, however, fell victim to the sweep with a 105-65 loss to Sage Ridge and a 110-65 defeat to Fernley.
Despite the split decisions, Fallon will compete in Friday and Saturday’s Northern Division I-A regional meet in Carson City.
“We had some guys come through and our relay teams stepped up,” Fallon coach Ken Grimes said.
On Friday, though, two of Fallon’s top swimmers got a little more than they bargained for in the 200-yard freestyle.
Addyson Harmon and Sierra Bivens — along with Fernley’s Alexis Hall and Autumn Tipps — were in the midst of the race when Harmon, who was in the lead, Bivens and Hall stopped after making a turn.
All three initially figured the race was over after the timers in their lanes moved to the wall to watch the swimmers touch to finish the race. The problem, though, is the timers lost count of the number of laps completed by the swimmers.
Once the trio figured out the race wasn’t over, they immediately finished the race. The problem, though, caused a significant timing issue so the officials opted to re-swim the race.
In the official version, Hall edged Harmon, Bivens and Tipps.
“The girls swam real well,” Grimes said.
Even with the hiccup and the extra eight laps, Harmon and Bivens lead the Lady Wave to one of its best efforts of the season.
Fallon followed with a dominating performance in the 50 free as Katalina Martinez won the event in 27.96 seconds followed by Kaelehn Nemeth (29.62), Amber Revels (29.73) and Danielle Brown (31.01).
Martinez added a second win the 100 free (1:02.13), while Katrina Ward (1:14.73) and Revels (1:18.2) took first and second, respectively, in the 100 butterfly.
Nemeth capped the Lady Wave’s individual wins with a victory in the 100 backstroke (1:18.59).
The 200 medley relay team of Kaelehn Nemeth, Brown, Katrina Ward and Martinez won in 2:13.99. Bivens, Revels, Martinez and Nemeth lead the 200 free relay team to a win in 1:58.76.
Kyle Grimes, meanwhile, showed why he is a threat to win the 50 free regional crown as he came in first at 23.26. He is also one of fastest in the 100 free and won Friday’s heat in 52.24, more than 1 minute faster than Spencer Lang of Sage Ridge.
Nathan Narag and Kobe Abe placed, fourth (1:04.04) and fifth (1:07.56), respectively, in the 100 free. Narag was also fifth in the 50 free (27.99).
Kendall Rogers added a third-place finish in the 100 back (1:17.78), while Abe took fourth (1:25.82).