Laurel Smith of Bearden finished third. Hannah Jordan of Seymour was fourth. Diana C. Nearhos/USA TODAY Network - Tennessee
There was a brief look of disappointment that dissolved into a smile. Caleb Harrington was aiming for a state record. He had swum the time before, just not in a high school meet. The Tennessee Interscholastic Swim Coaches Association state meet was the Bearden senior's chance.
Harrington didn't have the swim he wanted and came up 0.11 seconds short of the record in the 50-yard freestyle at 20.37, but he did finish the meet's first day with two more state titles.
"I wasn't happy with my swim, but I'm really happy with my win," Harrington said. "I did a lot of things wrong. I should have gotten the record. But I still won and I can't be mad about that."
Harrington also won the 100-yard butterfly with a time of 48.36 seconds. It was his third straight win in the fly and second in the 50. He also won the 100 free as a freshman, for a total of six individual state wins. He's also swimming in both the 200 and 400 freestyle relays on Saturday.
Harrington comes from a swim family. He's following his sister Lauren to Georgia in the fall, where she was on two national championship teams and was runner-up in the 200 fly in 2013. His brother swam distance at Evansville and his brother-in-law Seth Stubblefield missed the 2016 Olympic team by 0.04 seconds.
Local medalists
Harrington finished directly ahead of another Knoxville area swimmer in both his races. West's Coleman Kredich was second in the 50 free at 20.68 seconds. Sevier County's Thomas Horne finished second in the fly at 50.23 seconds
Webb's Jack Hamilton was third in the 200 individual medley at 1:52.68. Hardin Valley's Carissa Armijo finished third in the girls' race at 2:03.23.
Maryville's medley relay of Alex Mays, Eli Tate, Noah Salcido and Garrett Graumann finished second with a time of 1:34.78.
Bearden diver Laurel Smith finished third with 359.6 points.
National records
Trey Freeman of Baylor dropped nine seconds from prelims to the finals to set a national high school record in the 200 freestyle and it was only one of two set on Friday.
Freeman swam a 1:41.99 in the prelims of the event Friday afternoon. He came back that night with a 1:33.06, narrowly under the national record of 1:33.26.
The Harpeth Hall girls medley relay team also set a national record. Alex Walsh, Ella Nelson, Alex Massey and Gretchen Walsh finished the race in 1:38.77, almost two seconds faster than the private school record and about half a second of the previous overall record.
Gretchen Walsh also broke the 50 free state record in her individual event by .01 second with a time of 22.26.