CARY — Green Hope turned in a dominating performance at the Tri-Eight Conference Swimming Championships, with the girls cruising to a 525-point outing and the boys sneaking out a win over rivals Apex and Athens Drive.

The meet was held at the Triangle Aquatic Center in Cary.

Green Hope coach Jim Swartz was not surprised with his girls team. They have won 17 of their 18 meets this year, losing only one due to a disqualification in a relay. And when it came to conference championship time Saturday night, Swartz expected a win.

"They've been great all year, so I really expected them to come out and have a strong performance tonight," Swartz said.

The girls team was led by Katie Lehman, the meet's most valuable swimmer, who won both the 100-yard butterfly and the 100-yard backstroke.

But the Green Hope boys team was missing two of its top swimmers — including Dominick Glavich who was invited to the U.S. Olympic training facility for the weekend.

"The best part about this win is we did it without two of our top swimmers," Ryan Aves, a junior captain of the Green Hope team said. "Apex beat us by a little bit earlier this year, but now tonight we got them."

The boys team finished with 462 points, beating out Apex's 410 and Cary's 366.

Cary's girls and boys finished second and third, respectively, and coaches Kyrin Hellinger and Erin Stevens were excited about the experience tough conference competition gives their squad before heading into regionals.

"We have such a strong conference that our team is really prepared for regionals," Hellinger said. "It's less about depth there and I think we're looking good."

But the star of the night, and of the season, was Green Hope -- particularly the girls team. With regionals set to begin Feb. 6, Swartz will work on preparing his stacked roster on Monday.

"I give them their options on where they want to swim. I have a lot of kids who have made regionals in multiple events," Swartz said. "So we'll sit down Monday morning and we'll figure out where they want to swim. We want to spotlight their individual performances and go for broke."