By Levi Payton

sports@joplinglobe.com

After dominating the competition Saturday, the Joplin Stingrays swim team picked up right where it left off Sunday and walloped the Carthage Aquatic Team 1,172.5-666.5 to win the 30th Joplin Invitational Swim Meet at Schifferdecker Municipal Pool.

While Joplin easily pulled away for the win, the real battle was between Carthage and the Monett Water Thrashers as they shuffled for second place. The two teams struggled for position with nearly identical scores for most of Sunday before Carthage finally managed to pull away during team competition late in the day.

Monett settled for third with 609 points. The Lamar Tiger Sharks came in fourth with 331 followed by the Nevada Neptunes (244.5), Claremore Stingrays (142.5), Missouri State Aquatics (108.5), Webb City Cardinals (69), Parsons Dolphins (55.5), and the Branson Waves (15).

There were several high-point individuals for Joplin this weekend. Garrick Sison (6-and-younger boys), Lana Desmond (8-younger girls), Andrew Chesney (8-younger boys), Liam Holt (11-12 boys) and Kate Blundell (15-18 girls) each were top scorers in their respective age divisions.

Blundell scored the most first-place finishes of the group. The 17-year old won the 200-meter freestyle (2:21.13), 50 backstroke (37.13), 50 butterfly (32.75) and 50 breaststroke (38.28).

Other Stingrays who won their divisions were Sison and Desmond, who each won two events, and Chesney and Holt, who won three apiece.

Other notables were Carthage’s Olivia Bene, who won events in the 50 freestyle (51.90), 50 backstroke (58.63), 50 butterfly (1:10.28) and 50 breaststroke (1:11.47), and Nevada’s Jesse Claypool (9-10 boys), who had firsts in the 200 individual medley (3:26.52), 50 butterfly (39.47) and 50 breaststroke (46.27).

Overall, the tournament was deemed a success.

“We had a really great swim meet,” Stingrays president Bill White said. “It was a good weekend for swimming. The weather was good and (Joplin) did very good this weekend, but so did the other teams.”