The Busbys were busy bees in the pool on Saturday.

Olivia Busby won four events — two individuals and two relays — and Matthew Busby won the boys’ 50 and 100 yard freestyle events to lead St. Aloysius’ swim team to a third-place finish at the VCS Tune Up For State meet at the Verbeck YMCA pool.

St. Al totaled 183 points with its boys and girls teams. Madison-St. Joe won the team title with 266 points, and Bayou Academy was second with 233.

Regents Oxford (172 points), Cathedral (115) and Jackson Academy (79) rounded out the team standings.
St. Al had 123 of its points come from an outstanding performance by its female swimmers, with Olivia Busby in the lead. She won the 50 yard freestyle in 28.39 seconds and the 100 freestyle in 1:06.27.

Busby also teamed with Elle Larson, Hendrix Eldridge and Grace Edwards to win both the 200 freestyle and 200 medley relays, with times of 2:08.24 and 2:24.45 respectively.

Eldridge also netted an individual victory in the 100 yard breaststroke, in addition to her relay wins. She touched the wall in 1:37.49.

Larson had two second-place finishes, in the 100 freestyle and 100 backstroke, while Edwards was third in the 50 freestyle and fourth in the 100 freestyle. St. Al took three of the top four spots in the 100 freestyle.
Autumn Rice also had a second-place finish behind Eldridge in the 100 yard breaststroke.

In the boys’ competition, Matthew Busby swam to victory in both sprint freestyle events. He clocked a time of 26.38 seconds in the 50 to edge St. Joe’s Jason Buckley by two-tenths of a second, and then beat Buckley by a whopping four seconds in the 100. Busby had a time of 57.06 seconds in the 100, and Buckley was second in 1:01.06.

Busby was St. Al’s only winner in the boys’ varsity events, although Abram Rice won the 50 yard breaststroke in the elementary school division with a time of 1:03.57.

In the girls’ elementary school division, St. Al’s Hayes Katherine Eldridge won the 25 yard freestyle (34.30 seconds) and the 25 yard breaststroke (45.61 seconds).

As this meet’s name suggested, St. Al and the other participating schools were preparing for the MAIS Overall Swim Meet. The event will be held Sept. 24 and 25 at Grit Training on Lakeland Drive in Flowood.

The elementary school division, grades 1-6, will compete on Sept. 24. The high school division, grades 7-12, will hit the pool on Sept. 25.