Seven out of the 10 swimmers on the Lakeland High School’s boys’ swim team are headed to states.

Lakeland competed in the Class 3 Region A swim meet last week and had seven swimmers qualify off of the boys’ team. The three swimmers that didn’t qualify had just started swimming this year.

This is the second time in school history that Lakeland has had swimmers progress to states, with last year being the first year. Last year, Lakeland sent only a relay team to states. This year, they have qualified for more than one event and will send more swimmers than they did last season.

The boys’ 200 medley team finished fourth to advance to states. The medley was swam by Cody Anderson, Josh Bennett, Chandler Sessoms and Ryan Wright. The 400 freestyle relay team finished fourth and swam to states with Anderson, Corey Hasson, Cole Matern and Colton Brown. Hasson qualified for two individual events in the 500-yard freestyle and 100-yard backstroke, and he is also the first athlete to qualify for multiple individual events for Lakeland.

“Corey just began swimming for Old Dominion Aquatic Club in the spring of 2017 after showing a lot of strength and potential in the pool last season and wanted to continue that progression once high school season ended,” Lakeland coach Beth Brant said. “This season he has shown growth in speed, endurance and technique and has been a great influence on his teammates. He is the only swimmer who swims year-round on the team.”

Brown was close to qualifying for an individual event but missed a qualifying finish by one second. Brant believes Brown will come back stronger and faster because of the slight miss. Brown, Wright, Matern and Hasson were all part of a 200-freestyle team that also missed qualifying for states by a hundredth of a second.

Overall, Brant was proud of how both her boys’ and girls’ team competed at the regional meet.

“All boys showed tremendous strength and heart in the pool; I am proud of their accomplishment,” Brant said. “While the girls’ team did not have anyone move forward to states, they did show growth throughout the season, and I am hopeful that next year will be the year they will progress to states.”

The Class 3 swim meet will be held Friday in Richmond at SWIMRVA.