MARIETTA - The Lassiter boys gave it their best Saturday night in the finals of the Cobb Championships at Mountain View Aquatic Center, but their disqualification in Friday's preliminaries of the 400-yard freestyle relay proved costly.

According to Trojans coach Glenn Meeden, the team led Walton by 10 points going into Saturday's 400 freestyle relay finals, which was the final event of the meet. But without a Lassiter entry in the event. the Raiders won the 400 freestyle relay to clinch the meet with 495.5 team points.

The Trojans took second with 457 points, followed by Pope (413.5), Harrison (307) and Kennesaw Mountain (257).

"Our boys did so well," Meeden said. "I don't mean to be sour grapes, but the disqualification hurt us."

The Trojans' 400-yard freestyle relay team was disqualified in Friday's preliminary race for having two swimmers in the water at the same time, facing the same direction. That meant a swimmer who had just finished his race didn't get out of the water until his teammate succeeding him made his first turn.

To Walton's credit, it delivered some stellar swims. The Raiders won the 200 freestyle relay in 1 minute, 38.11 second and the 400 freestyle relay in 3:16.66. Those to wins contributed heavily to their point total.

Ben Shepperd was a two-time individual winner in the 50 freestyle (21.45) and the 100 butterfly (52.17), while Brian McClintock defended his county titles in the 100 freestyle (46.96) and 100 backstroke (52.07). Kirk Malcolm took second in the breaststroke (1:02.19) and third in the 200 individual medley (1:58.33).

"The key to all these county and state meets are our relays," Walton coach Sharon Loughran said. "Our medley and 400 (freestyle) relays did really well. We also had a couple of young swimmers that really came through for us."

David Sanchez's second-place dive was also big for Walton. Will Sellman took fourth on the board, Taylor Langhorn was fifth and Andy Cowles was eighth.

For Lassiter, Jimmy Yoder clinched the 200 freestyle with a meet-record time of 1:43.44, while also adding wins in the 500 freestyle (4:38.66) and as part of the 200 freestyle relay (1:30.22).

"That 200 freestyle relay really pumped them up," Meeden said.

Other top finishes for the Trojans were Zach Bunner taking second in the 100 backstroke (53.85) and third in the 100 butterfly (54.78). Henry Loong took third in the 100 breaststroke (1:03.88) and fourth in the 200 IM in (2:01.47).