Friday was certainly good for Salisbury swimmers Ethan Knorr and Kathryn Morrison. The pair of freshmen notched two top-five finishes in their individual events at the 1A/2A state swimming championship in Cary. Morrison was also on a pair of relay teams to qualify for championship finals.

Before the meet, Knorr and Morrison talked about being able to compete at the state championship level in their first year of high school swimming.

“We both wanted to do well and win our events,” Morrison said. “We reassured each other this is our first year, so we’ve still got three more years to compete.”

The two rising stars earned spots on the podium with Morrison’s third-place finish in the girls 100-yard backstroke and Knorr’s third-place finish in the boys 500-yard freestyle.

Knorr also placed fourth in the 200 individual medley. He was seeded fifth after the preliminaries when he posted a time of 2 minutes, 2.44 seconds. His time in the final dropped by more than three seconds to 1:59.15.

He said his times in the two championship races were personal bests by three seconds.

“I just went in and tried my best and it worked out,” said Knorr, a freshman.

Morrison had a touch of butterflies before the start of Friday’s meet at the Triangle Aquatic Center.

“I’ve been in very many big meets before, but it was definitely different being in this one being a younger swimmer,” she said. “I was nervous.”

Morrison also placed fifth in the 100 butterfly — a stroke she admitted is not her strongest — and swam for the Hornets on the eighth-place 200 medley and sixth-place 400 freestyle relay teams.

She said she was disappointed Friday because her individual times were not her best. That was gone Saturday when she remembered what the 400 freestyle relay team accomplished — improving its time by five seconds Friday — and Salisbury as a whole did overall by capturing the Central Carolina Conference championship and not losing to a 2A team all season.