It was a busy weekend for local athletes, as Raider swimmers and wrestlers had some of their last home meets before regional tournaments kick off. 

Raider swimmers hit the pool Friday for their senior night and community meet. Even though they weren’t competing against an opposing team, coach Julie Heard says the team members logged impressive performances.

"We had a lot of swimmers do personal bests, shaving off one, two, three, four seconds on their time," Heard says.

Lucio Howard and Amber Vernon set personal records in the 200-meter individual medley, and Teressa Henning beat her best 200-meter freestyle time.

Heard says that bodes well for the team, which travels to Homer this Wednesday for their regional championships. They’ll compete against 11 other schools in the Northern Lights athletic conference.

This weekend, the Raider wrestling team was supposed to take on Sand Point and King Cove at home. But King Cove’s squad was weathered out, and only two Sand Point wrestlers made the trip with their coach.

Still, Unalaska coach Steve Gregory says the wrestlers managed to get in 34 practice bouts.

"So most of the matches were intersquad matches between Unalaska Raiders, but we were able to get six matches against the Sand Point kids," he says. "That was good for them and that was good for us, as well."

The Raider wrestlers will put that practice to use this weekend at the Anchorage Christian Schools tournament. Gregory says the competition is bigger than regionals or state.

And he says it’s especially exciting for two Raider wrestlers – Alec Magalong, who’s the top wrestler in the state in the 106-pound class, and Connor McConnell, who’s second in the 220-pound class.

"So that’ll be the big test," Gregory says. "If those guys are still number one and number two after that tournament, we’ll have something to see then."