The YMCA Rays Swim Team finished 23rd at the recent Long Course Nationals Meet at the University of Maryland.

More than 1,500 swimmers from 300 teams competed.

"Eight swimmers ages 14-18 years old qualified to compete and broke current team records, so the team did well," Head Coach Merv Faassen De Heer said.

"I have been coaching nine years for the Y and this is the largest team so far. We have won the Y state meet the last four out of five years."

The team competes all year against YMCA and U.S. swim teams with one short course (25 yards) pool and a long course 50-meter pool. To qualify for the nationals, each swimmer had to reach a time standard set for the event by the YMCA of the USA Swim and Diving.

Recent high school graduate Alex Carr of Fort Mill placed third in the 1,500-meter freestyle in 16:29.23, third in the 800-meter freestyle in 8:35.11, fourth in the 400-meter freestyle 4.09.45 and ninth in the 400 IM 4:45.21.

He will be attending Clemson University on a swimming scholarship.

Other Fort Mill swimmers included Holly Hirsch, Jennifer Russell, Alex Huffman and Matt Lang.

Hirsch took three seconds off her 200-meter backstroke time, equaled her 100-meter backstroke time and took .5 seconds off her 50-meter backstroke.

In her events, Russell took 3.5 seconds off her 200-meter breaststroke and just missed the finals. Huffman equaled his 50-meter freestyle and 50-meter butterfly times at the meet.

Lang equaled his 200 and 50-meter breaststroke times after making considerable improvements just to qualify for nationals

Everyone on the team improved previous best times to move up nationally by 10 to 75 places.