Taconic Hills hadn't seen a sectional championship in swimming since 2012, but that changed on Saturday at Shenendehowa High School when Neil Howard III delivered in the 50-yard freestyle championship with a winning time of 22.16 seconds.
Howard followed up two events later with a second-place finish in the 100-yard freestyle championship with a new personal best, resetting the record he broke on Friday in a time of 49.49 seconds.
On Friday, Howard dominated in the sprints at the Section 2 swimming sectional preliminaries for Division II schools.
Swimming the 50-and- 100-yard freestyle events, Howard took the first and second qualifying spots respectively during preliminary heats. In the 50-yard freestyle, Howard III stormed to a new personal best time of 21.68 seconds, resetting his own school record in the event.
In the 100-yard freestyle, pushed by a stacked Burnt Hills-Ballston Lake team on both sides of him, Howard recorded the second-best time of the event in 49.90 seconds — at the time, a new personal best and a new Taconic Hills school record, which had been held by Matt Schiller since 2009.
The winter dual-sport athlete added two swim sectional patches to three first-place titles he earned last month at indoor track sectionals at Union College. His swim season comes to an end as he turns his focus to preparing for the track and field indoor state championships in early March.