Bringin' Back the Blog!

 

Ty Keaton celebrates the return of the blog!

I'm back! After a five-year hiatus, I've decided to resume my blog covering the Fort Mill sports scene. I call it 'From the Sidelines'. Catchy, right? I'm nothing if not creative! During that 2014-15 school year, the blog was mainly a showcase for the Banks Trail MS sports program. I was a booster club sponsor and my son was on the 8th grade football team. Those kids are Freshman and Sophomores in college now and I've moved on to spending most of sports shooting time at Nation Ford/Catawba Ridge/Fort Mill events. I can still be found at Banks Trail, though, doing team picture days for all the sports. By the way, those posts are still active and can be found by scrolling down below this post. Check them out for a walk down memory lane.

I intend for these posts, like the previous ones, to be a place to highlight the photos I get while photographing the action around the FMSD fields and courts. I'm not a sports reporter, so you won't find the typical game stories with play-by-play run-downs and a listing of the team and individual stats from the games. For that you can check out Mac Banks' daily posts on his site, Fort Mill Prep Sports (@FortPrep on Twitter) or the Rock Hill Herald. Here, its all about the photos and a little story-telling from my sideline perspectives. I'll keep it upbeat and maybe a little silly (I crack me up!). These student-athletes are dedicated, put in a lot of hard work and give it everything they've got when it's time to compete. I love being there to watch and capture it with my camera, and to share it with all of you. So with that said, lets see what's been happening so far this Fall!

State Champs!

NaFo's Lucas Grigat swims butterfly during the Sept 24 FM-CR  tri-meet.

 

Earlier this month the SC state swim meets for boys and girls were held in North Charleston. In the 5A boys meet Nation Ford finished third overall as a team, while taking home three individual race championships. Fort Mill finished 5th overall 10 top 10 finishes. For Nation Ford, Senior Austin Lockhart set state records while winning the 50-yd and 100-yd freestyle events. Lockhart teamed with fellow Seniors Lucas Grigat and George Bujoreanu and Freshman Nick Martin to win the 200-yd freestyle relay. Meanwhile, in the girls 5A meet, Emily Eaton lead Nation Ford to a 5th place team finish with four top five finishes in her events, while Fort Mill finished in sixth place. In the 4A meets, the Catawba Ridge boys placed 11th overall, with four top ten finishes. TheRidge girls ended up 15th overall, tied with Indian Land. Senior Rielly Lavery led the girls with two top ten finishes.

NaFo's Emily Eaton

NaFo's Austin Lockhart swims backstroke in Sept 24 meet

NaFo's George Bujoreanu

 

Ethan Curtis

                                                      

Alex Montgomer

Zoey Meil

Region Champs!

Earlier this week, region championship meets were held at the Anne Springs Close Greenway for Region 3-4A and 5A. In the 5A meet on Tuesday, Nation Ford runners Katie Pou and Connor O'Flynn won the individual medals, but Fort Mill finished with the overall team championship for both boys and girls teams. Nation Ford finished as runners-up in each category. In 4A, Catawba Ridge swept the boys and girls team titles and runners Maddy Mack and Sam rich were the first place finishers. All three teams now look to next weekend's (Oct 30-31) state qualifier races; 4A will be held at Lake Murray in Chapin and 5A at the Sandhills Research Center in Columbia. 

Katie Pou

Connor O'Flynn

Angel Kravitz

Evan Wey

Sam Rich

Maddy Mack

Ok, that's it for this edition. I've got quite a bit of action to catch up on so look for new posts to come over the next few days to get you up to speed on what's been happening. Next up I'll highlight the girls tennis teams and volleyball teams. If you'd like to automatically have this blog delivered to your inbox you can subscribe with your email address at the top of the page at the right. You can also have it added to your RSS feed by clicking the button just below my profile, also at the top right of the page. Thanks for reading and I'll see you soon...from the the sidelines!