PILOT MOUNTAIN — East Surry’s girls swim team edged the Lady Villains in a recent conference meet with Bishop McGuinness and West Stokes.

The Lady Cardinals built up 129 team points, while Bishop scored 118 and West Stokes 57. On the boys’ side, Bishop handily outpointed West Stokes (second place) and East Surry (third).

“Obviously I was very pleased with the outcome for my girls,” said East Coach Leah Tunstall. “We had a lot of great swims, combined with a lot of great leadership from my older kids, for positive results.”

This was the first swim meet in more than two weeks for the home team. She said she tried to keep the swimmers involved over the Christmas break, “but you never know how that’s going to go.”

She found out as the Lady Cards took first place in seven of the 11 events.

“We had a lot of wins, but you can’t win just by taking first,” Tunstall noted. The Cards had a lot of second, third and fourth places, too, to build up the team score.

“The 200 freestyle relay was a very big part of that,” she said as East Surry’s two teams earned both first and third.

After Bishop took first in the 500-meter freestyle, the Villains were in the lead 74-69-31 over East Surry and West Stokes.

The 200 relay gave the Cards 14 points for first and eight for third, boosting the Cards into the lead 91-84-41.

The top team edged Bishop’s top squad by about 1.3 seconds.

Bishop held close and was behind just 11 points going into the final event, the 400-meter freestyle. The Cards took first by more than three seconds and also fifth place in that race for 18 team points, while Bishop was second and third for an identical 18 points, preserving the lead.

Along with the two relay wins, the Lady Cards won five individual races, too.

Kelsey Tunstall won the 200m freestyle in 2:16.44 and won the 100m backstroke in 1:08.44.

Katherine Martin also won two races. She finished the 100m butterfly in 1:08.08 and the 200m individual medley in 2:29.37.

The fifth win came from Avery Tilley, who took the 100m breaststroke in 1:19.31

On the boys’ side, Bishop took first place in all 11 events.

East’s Christopher Holshouser finished second in the 200m individual medley. He also finished second in the 100m backstroke.

Holshouser was part of the 200m freestyle relay team that took third place.

East’s Caleb Mann was third in the 200m freestyle, fourth in the 100m breaststroke and was part of the 200m relay team.

Tunstall said the team has just two weeks to get ready for the conference championship.

That event will be at the Armfield Civic Center Jan. 18-19.