WPIAL swimmers off to fast start at PIAA meet

By: Michael Love
Wednesday, March 13, 2024 | 1:01 PM

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WPIAL swimmers fared well in Day 1 preliminary swims at the PIAA Class 3A championships Wednesday morning at Bucknell University’s Kinney Natatorium.

Several qualified for this evening’s championship heats involving the top-eight finishers from the prelim heats.

Boys

The North Allegheny boys 200-yard medley relay of William Gao, Gus Miller, Riley Williams and Grant Regule placed third overall with a time of 1 minute, 33.05 seconds, while Upper St. Clair placed seventh (1:34.42).

Fox Chapel junior Christian Dantey led the way in the 200 free (1:40.28), and he is the fifth seed for tonight’s championship heat.

Central Catholic junior Luke Hartman, the No. 1 seed in the 200 free, placed seventh after the prelims (1:40.65), while Upper St. Clair sophomore Nazar Zoukovski placed eighth (1:40.77).

Gateway junior Hunter Raymer (1:53.42) and Fox Chapel junior Owen Howell (1:53.77) placed fifth and seventh, respectively, after their prelim swims in the 200 IM.

North Allegheny sophomore Danny Lesinski moved up 18 spots from the 26th seed and snagged eighth (1:54.05) and a spot in the 200 IM championship heat.

Regule will represent North Allegheny and the WPIAL overall in the finals of the 50 free after taking seventh in the prelims (20.97), while Gao will do the same in the 100 fly with a fourth-place finish in the prelims (49.16).

Lesinski, Regule, Dylan Seiford, and Jake Rechenmacher lifted the North Allegheny 200 free relay to fourth after the prelims (1:34.67), while Upper St. Clair will swim in the championship heat as the No. 8 seed (1:25.73).

Girls

Greta Mott, Tori Tieppo, Eva Ogden, and Natalie Sens teamed up to lift the North Allegheny 200 medley relay to the No. 4 seed for the championships heat with a prelim swim in 1:44.89.

Seneca Valley dropped .24 in its prelim swim and is seeded eighth for the finals (1:48.10).

Fox Chapel junior Sarah Pasquella, seeded fourth in the 200 free, moved up one spot and is the third seed for the finals after a prelim swim of 1:51.08. That exact time helped her captured the WPIAL title Feb. 29 at Pitt’s Trees Pool.

Mt. Lebanon junior Sylvia Roy trimmed just five-hundredths of a second from her No. 1 seed time in the 50 free, but her 22.79 was good enough to wrap up the top seed for this evening’s championship heat.

She will face opposition from seven others including WPIAL runner-up Kaitlyn Connors, a senior from Upper St. Clair. Connors swam a 23.36 in the prelims and is the fifth seed for the finals.

Sens had the second-fastest time in the prelims of the 100 fly (55.29).

Five WPIAL 200 free relay teams will swim in the finals led by the North Allegheny quartet of Sens, Julianne Weaver, Madden Woycheck, and Claire Bacu (1:35.81) in third.

Mt. Lebanon is the No. 4 seed for the finals (1:36.79), while Upper St. Clair is fifth (1:36.98), Fox Chapel is sixth (1:37.09), and Latrobe is eighth (1:38.29).

Schedule

The championship and consolation heats for the boys will start at 4:30 p.m., while the girls championship and consolation heats begin at 6:50 p.m. The Pennsylvania Cable Network will provide live coverage of both evening sessions.

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.