The 2009 portion of the Douglas County Stingrays short-course season has come to an end. This past weekend, the Stingrays hosted the four-team Candy Cane Sprint at Boundary Waters Aquatics Center.

Hosting its only meet of the season, the Stingrays nearly pulled off the upset win against two larger teams at the meet. Host Douglas County finished third overall in the team standings with its female swimmers winning the girls’ team category.

Southern Crescent Aquatic Team won the overall championship for the second straight season with 1,215 points while the Carrollton Bluefins took second with 1,136 points. Douglas County amassed 988 points from its 57 swimmers entered in the competition. The Stingrays won the girls division with 689 points.

SCAT will again have its name engraved on the trophy and keep it for another year.

“We had a great end to 2009 with our annual meet,” Stingrays coach Judy Prokopiak said. “We had a lot of fun with candy cane prizes. The Stingrays again performed some outstanding racing. All of our swimmers swam at least one challenging race.”

In all, 16 Douglas County swimmers won 27 of the 46 individual events with six getting multiple wins. Chloe Miller, 11, won all four of the events she entered to lead the team with 36 points. Alexis Whiddon, 8, Tereza Dudzik, 6, and Riley Hagy, 8, each won three events apiece.

Winning at least two events were Kamaria Mahone, 11, and Kadem LaFargue 12. Mahone won the 50 free (27.70 seconds) and 100 backstroke (1:06.55), both with personal-best times.

LaFargue won the 50 free (27.77) and 50 back (36.42), which were also personal-bests for him.

Miller won the 100 freestyle (1:00.78), 100 butterfly (1:08.82), 100 Individual Medley (1:09.34) and 400 IM (5:21.54). She teamed with Emily Najar, Kalie Whiddon and Mahone to win the 100 freestyle.

The Stingrays’ 8-and-Under relay team of Whiddon, Gray Miller, Dudzik and Hagy won the 100 free for their age group. This was Miller’s first meet of the season, but she fared well with two fourth-place and a third-place individual finish.

Najar, 11, dropped times in all four of her individual events, including a state cut in the 500 free, which she won with a time of 5:59.52. She dropped 10.85 seconds from her previous best time.

Also making state cut times were Kalie Whiddon, 12, and Jesse Hagy, 10. Kalie Whiddon finished second in the 50 free to Mahone, but had a state cut of 27.99 for her second qualifying time of the season.

Jesse Hagy won the 200 IM in a person-best of 3:07.25 to make a state cut. He dropped 5.61 seconds from his previous best time.

After swimming three individual events and a relay, Riley Hagy ended the meet on a good note. She swam the 500 free and dropped an impressive minute and 30 seconds from her previous time of a year ago. Not to be outdone by his younger sister, Jesse, also swam the 500 and dropped over a minute from his previous time.

Jesse Hagy missed a state qualifying time by only .08 seconds.

Bailee Spivey, 14, had three second place finishes, with her best showing in the 100 breaststroke, where she had a personal-best of 1:20.96, dropping two seconds.

“Although it is a sprint meet, we added some distance swims at the end a few years ago for those up for a bigger challenge,” Prokopiak said. “We will continue to train through the holidays as we prepare for our championship season, which culminates the beginning of April.”

When the team returns to competition in January, they will have a few more meets for swimmers to qualify for the state championship. This year’s championship will be in February in Savannah for the 14-and-under age groups.

So far, the team has seven individual and two relay teams qualified for the state meet.

In addition to the work that the swimmers did in the pool, Prokopiak was pleased at the support she received from the volunteer parents in making the meet a success.

“I am so lucky to have the not only the greatest kids, but their parents as well,” she said. “They did an awesome job, as usual, putting on a fun, organized meet. We could not do it without them.”