Payne captures SSA’s first gold medal at Southeastern Championships

For each of the seven years preceding this year's meet, Scottsboro Swim Association had produced an individual event medalist at the Southeastern Swim Championships.

However, a gold medal had remained elusive to SSA swimmers. Mark Payne changed that last weekend.

Payne, a Guntersville native who swims with SSA in the winter, scored the program's first-ever first-place finish in the event with a team-record time of 1:16.61 in the boys 9-and-10-year-olds 100-yard Breaststroke on Sunday. His time bested swimmers from some of the biggest clubs in Alabama, Tennessee and Florida.

That win capped a weekend that saw Payne also place seconnd in the 50-yard Breaststroke, sixth in the 50 Freestyle and seventh in both the 100 Individual Medley and the 100 Freestyle. Payne also set new SSA records in the 50 Breaststroke and the 100 Freestyle. He personally amassed all of SSA's 74 points, a total that placed the team 26th out of nearly 100 teams.

SSA's other qualifiers also had an excellent weekend.

Levi Webb, swimming in the maximum-allowed seven events, placed as high as 15th in the 9-10 boys 50 Breaststroke and was consistently in the top 30 in almost all of his events.

Riley O'Brien also qualified for the maximum number of events and dropped a combined total of nearly 27 seconds from his swims, with his best finish a 36th-place effort in the 9-10 boys 100 Fly.

Tony Pereira placed in the top 25 in three of his four events in the 11-12 Boys age group, a performance that included a pair of 23rd-place swims in the 50 Free and 50 Fly.

Clay Giles teamed up with Webb, Payne and O'Brien on Friday to give SSA its first relay team at this event in its history.  The squad placed a very respectable 13th in the 9-10 Boys 200-yard Freestyle Relay, besting many teams from much larger programs.

Payne will travel to Greensboro, N.C. in two weeks for the Southern Zone Age Groups Sectionals Championships, having qualified to swim both Breaststroke events.  This will be the fifth consecutive year that SSA will be represented at Sectionals.