Fox Chapel freshman brings home WPIAL swimming gold
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Thursday, February 27, 2020 | 5:18 PM
Fox Chapel’s Sophie Shao competes in the girls 100 butterfly during the 2020 AAA WPIAL Swimming and Diving Championship at Trees Pool on Thursday, Feb. 27, 2020.
Winners in the girls AAA 100 yard butterfly, Sophie Shao of Fox Chapel in first place, Ella Ogden of North Allegheny in second place, Cassidy Sweeney of Peters Township in third place, Abby Mele of Canon-McMillan in fourth place, Abbie Griffith, of Butler, in fifth place, Abby Beatty of Moon in sixth place, Julia Listwak of Seneca Valley in seventh and Adrienne Hagins of Mt. Lebanon in eighth place, on Thursday, Feb. 27, 2020 at Joe C. Trees Pool at University of Pittsburgh.
Fox Chapel’s Sophie Shao competes in the girls 100 butterfly during the 2020 AAA WPIAL Swimming and Diving Championship at Trees Pool on Thursday, Feb. 27, 2020.
Quick breather
Kiski Area’s Jack Coleman competes in the boys 200-yard individual medley during the WPIAL Class AAA championships.
Kiski Area’s Jack Coleman competes in the boys 200 individual medley during the 2020 AAA WPIAL Swimming and Diving Championship at Trees Pool on Thursday, Feb. 27, 2020.
Fox Chapel’s Grace Gackenbach competes in the 200 freestyle.
Fox Chapel High School representatives hold their school’s section plaque they won in Section III AAA WPIAL swimming Thursday, Feb. 27, 2020 at Joe C. Trees Pool at University of Pittsburgh.
Boys’ AAA diving winners David Manelis of Fox Chapel in first place, Trevor Elliott of Seneca Valley in second place, Will Schenk of North Allegheny in third place and Carson Yohe of Franklin Regional High School in fourth place pose on the podium , Wednesday Feb. 27, 2020 at Joe C. Trees Pool at University of Pittsburgh.
Sophie Shao was full of energy and smiling from ear to ear when she came off the podium after receiving her gold medal in the WPIAL Class AAA girls 100-yard butterfly Thursday at Pitt’s Trees Pool.
About 20 minutes earlier, the Fox Chapel freshman swam to a winning time of 54.74 seconds, going under the 55-second mark for the first time this year.
“This definitely was a goal of mine since the start of the season,” said Shao, who outdistanced runner-up Ella Ogden, a sophomore from North Allegheny. “I was so happy and also relieved because I was a little nervous beforehand. The adrenaline was definitely there.”
Ogden touched the wall in a time of 55.13.
In addition to winning the title, Shao also lowered her school-record time in the event. She came in seeded first with a time of 55.12 recorded at a section dual meet with Franklin Regional on Feb. 6.
For the second year in a row, only the WPIAL champion in both individual and relay events earns an automatic berth to the PIAA championships, set for March 11-14 at Bucknell.
The other bids to states will be determined by comparing the times recorded by swimmers from all 12 districts. The top eight finishers in each event earned medals.
“I just want to keep this going at states,” Shao said. “I feel I still have work to do. I know I can go faster.”
She is the second Fox Chapel freshman in as many years to claim WPIAL gold. Zoe Skirboll won the 100 breaststroke last year.
Shao said a good swim as part of the meet-opening 200 medley relay also helped her mentally and physically prepare for her 100 fly swim.
The relay of Shao, freshman Talia Bugel, sophomore Rei Sperry and junior Vivian Shao raced to a school-record time of 1:45.92, surpassing the 1:46.12 set last year by Vivian Shao, Zoe Skirboll, Leia Ross and Grace Gackenbach and finishing third.
“This is really exciting. We all did what we had to do to get this best time. That was our goal going in,” Vivian Shao said. “We were close to it (1:46.49) at Franklin (Regional), and we knew we could go faster.”
Fox Chapel swimmers picked up additional medals on day one.
Vivian Shao, Sperry, Gackenbach and Julia Stutzman teamed up to take fifth in the 200 free relay. They went under 1:40, finishing with at time of 1:39.27, less than a half-second away from fourth-place North Hills (1:38.99).
Bugel scored a sixth-place medal in the girls 50 free with a time of 24.57.
Also earning a WPIAL medal was Plum senior Joey Decheck, who placed seventh in the boys 50 free with a personal-best time of 21.70.
“I felt good,” Decheck said. “I was .14 off the (school) record, so that was a little tough. But it felt good to finally make podium.”
Plum sophomore Elizabeth Glasspool finished 10th in the girls 100 butterfly, and she lowered her own school-record time to 59.00.
“I’m not going to lie; at first I was a little disappointed it wasn’t a 58,” Glasspool said concerning the goal of swimming a time under 59 seconds. “It was so close. But at the same time, it was pretty exciting.”
Ross placed 10th in the girls 200 free. Her time of 1:56.20 was only 14 hundredths of a second away from eighth.
The Fox Chapel girls are third in the team standings with 102 points. North Allegheny leads the way with 215 points, and Mt. Lebanon is second with 125.
The Class AAA swimming championships continues at 9:45 a.m. Friday with timed finals in the 100 free, 500 free, 100 backstroke, 100 breaststroke and 400 free relay.
Watch the archived video stream of the meet on Trib HSSN.
Michael Love is a TribLive reporter covering sports in the Alle-Kiski Valley and the eastern suburbs of Pittsburgh. A Clearfield native and a graduate of Westminster (Pa.), he joined the Trib in 2002 after spending five years at the Clearfield Progress. He can be reached at mlove@triblive.com.
Tags: Fox Chapel, Plum
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