HUNTINGTON — Parkersburg and Parkersburg South were among the teams competing in the Division 1 South Region swim championships Saturday, but many of the results are being withheld.

Winners of the regional at Marshall University’s Frederick A. Fitch Natatorium must wait one week to find out their competition from the North Region in the state meet, as the North Region meets also scheduled for Saturday were postponed a week due to weather.

Had it been contested Saturday as scheduled, the North Region meet at Bridgeport would have been missing nearly half the 13-school field unable to attend due to snowfall across much of the state. Those schools from the Eastern Panhandle were prohibited from traveling to Bridgeport to compete, according to Kathy Morris, director of the South Region and state meets.

For that reason, Morris chose not to make the results of the South Region meet public, she said, to prevent North Region schools from having the advantage of knowing what times they needed to beat to qualify.

Only team scores from Division 1 and the All-Region team from the South were released.

“It’s not a perfect option, but none of the options were perfect,” said Morris, who is also the coach at Cabell Midland.

Bids for the state meet go to the top four individual swimmers and relay teams in each event, plus an additional eight at-large slots are given to the top times. Morris did not release the results to even the coaches.

George Washington won the Division 1 boys and girls team titles on Saturday.

GW’s boys scored 155 points. Behind them in second and third, respectively, were South (80) and PHS (77).

The GW girls were just as dominant, scoring 135 points to finish ahead of runner-up PHS (99) and third-place South (82).

Parkersburg’s Levi Morr, a double-winner in the 200 and 500 freestyles, tied GW’s Kenneth McGlothen with 18 points to lead the All-Region team. South’s Remington Blair (16), winner of the 100 freestyle, also earned a spot on the team.

Delaney Snodgrass of PHS, who broke her own school record in the 500 freestyle, and Gaby Robertson of GW scored 18 points apiece to lead the girls All-Region squad. South’s Paige Johnson (14), who won the 100 backstroke, joined them.

Only swimmers who won automatic bids were known by their coaches.

PHS head coach Emily Martin and South head coach Ryan Radcliff sent a list of their automatic qualifiers to The Parkersburg News and Sentinel.

For the PHS girls, Snodgrass (1st in the 200 free and 500 free), Lily Jones (2nd in 100 butterfly, 3rd in 200 medley), Adelaide Vann (3rd in 100 free) and Haley Spencer (4th in 200 medley) earned individual automatic bids. The 200 medley relay team of Snodgrass, Lily Farinash, Jones and Jaelyn Kalika placed third to qualify while Snodgrass, Ingrid Youngstrom, Farinash and Vann were second in the 400 freestyle relay to advance.

For the South girls, Johnson, Camryn McLain, Vivian Grimm, Isabella Scarberry, Jalyn Eddy, Alexandra Smith, Baylee Hale and Marie Silvis earned automatic bids in their respective events.

On the boys side, the Big Reds saw Morr, Brayden Lotton (3rd in 100 back) and Noah Brown (4th in 100 free) earn individual automatic bids while Lotton, Elliott Lambert, Lars Youngstrom and Brown (3rd in 200 medley relay), Lambert, Youngstrom, Lotton and Morr (4th in 200 free relay) and Lotton, Lambert, Brown and Morr (2nd in 400 free relay) advanced in the relays.

For Radcliff’s Patriots, Brent Freels, Isaac Blair, Remington Blair, Ben Marks, Easton Parsons and Shawn Thornhill were the automatic qualifiers.

“Every single swimmer on this team went out there and absolutely crushed all expectations today,” said Martin, who had strong thoughts on how the regionals are being handled.

“We were dealt a really big blow (Friday) when we found out that the SSAC had agreed to postpone the Division 1 North meet without postponing ours to hold them on the same date. Swimming is unique from most team sports in that the objective to qualify for the state meet is objective and concrete — your final time in your race determines your spot. Because of that, it is imperative for fair competition that all swimmers and teams fighting for spots at the state meet compete on the same date, to ensure equal training opportunities and ‘blindness’ to other regions’ results for all athletes. Unfortunately, despite being well aware of the importance of teams competing on the same date, the SSAC made the decision to hold the two Division 1 meets on different dates, creating an extremely unfair tournament structure and greatly disadvantaging our swimmers.

“Before the meet, I had a long discussion with the team about what was going on and the extra challenges we were facing because of decisions by adults who unfortunately don’t take the time to understand our sport. We agreed as a team that we were going to use this situation to fuel us and make us stronger, and not let it tear us down. The team knew they had to go leave it all in the pool and leave no room for doubt, and that is exactly what they did. Each and every one of these kids exceeded every expectation I had for the day, and won some really important close races.”

Morris said the full results and times will be released following the conclusion of the North Region meets next Saturday.

The state meet will be held on Feb. 19-20 at Morgantown’s Peak Health Aquatic Center at Mylan Park.

“We are looking ahead to states knowing that we have at least seven girls and five boys qualified, with a strong likelihood of adding two other girls to that lineup,” Martin said. “In addition to the auto-qualifiers listed, we have several swimmers who are likely to add individual and/or relay events to their lineup once the official qualifiers are announced next weekend. For now, our eyes are on the State Meet and pressing forward for our training. We are heading into the State Meet looking really strong and with a ton of momentum after today.”

Rick Elmore of the Huntington Herald-Dispatch contributed.