Upper St. Clair claims it all
Boys dethrone North Allegheny, win title at home
Tri-State Sports & News Service Upper St. Clair wasn’t satisfied with having its stateof-the-art natatorium become the first high school to host the WPIAL Class 3A championship meet in nearly 60 years.
No, the Panthers wanted it all.
And they got it. Upper St. Clair won two relays and senior Josh Matheny set a WPIAL record in his signature event, the 100yard breaststroke, with a 54.40-second heat to help the school win its first WPIAL Class 3A boys team title since 2011. The Panthers also ended North Allegheny’s run of nine consecutive titles and the Tigers’ WPIALrecord streak of nine concurrent boys and girls championships in a row.
“It’s kind of like a movie script,” Upper St. Clair coach Dave Schraven said. “It’s the first year in so many decades since it wasn’t at Trees Pool and everybody at the school … has been fully invested in this.”
It is the first time a host has won the WPIAL team title since Mt. Lebanon won the single classification in 1962. The event had been held at Pitt’s Trees Pool since 1964, but had to be relocated this year because of the university’s COVID-19 protocols.
“I think, as a team, we definitely stepped it up and got it done when we needed to,” Matheny said. “I’m super proud of how it ended up.”
Upper St. Clair did not make it easy on itself. All Seneca Valley needed to do was win the final event, the 400 freestyle relay and have the Panthers finish seventh overall for the Raiders to win their first championship.
In the end, the Panthers finished sixth — beating seventh-place Mt. Lebanon by 0.17 seconds — and edged Seneca Valley, 276.50-275.
“People were congratulating me before the relay and I was like, this is not over yet because I knew [third-place] Penn-Trafford was going to be faster in the first heat and I was not resting easy in any way,” Schraven said. “I emphasized to the boys that we haven’t won. They kept saying we have to get sixth and win and I told them we can get seventh and lose and we almost did.”
North Hills’ Josh Bogniard and Butler’s David Bocci won gold in both their events.
Bogniard won the 100 freestyle with a time of 45.52 second, a 0.26-second margin over Gateway junior Andrew Holmes. He then took the 100 backstroke with a time of 49.08, 1.04 seconds faster than Canon-McMillan senior Max Orlowski.
“Winning doesn’t matter to me as much as reaching my goals and those two swims meant a lot,” Bogniard said.
Bocci finished in 48.94 in the 100 butterfly to beat Upper St. Clair junior Ganesh Sivaramakrishna by 1.09 seconds. He then broke open a very close 500 freestyle in the last 10 yards, beating Fox Chapel freshman Zachary Zorman-Ferguson by 2.04 seconds with a time of 4:31.81
“They really both mean a lot,” Bocci said. “I got second in both last year … so I’ve been working really hard for this and the hard work paid off.”
Upper St, Clair’s Taylor Connors was the first swimmer since at least 1963 — and the first female ever — to win a title in her home pool when she won the 200 freestyle. Girls did not compete for WPIAL titles until 1973.
“It was crazy,” Connors said. “It means so much to win a race in general, but to win it in my home pool, feels so special and I’m so thankful that I had an opportunity to do that.”
Connors added a second title in the 100 freestyle, finishing in 51.02.
Freshman Kaitlyn Connors, Taylor’s sister, won her first title in the 50 freestyle when she touched the wall in 23.75. “It’s amazing and incredible,” Kaitlyn said. “I’m so excited to swim against all these fast people and it’s not like any other meet, it’s so exciting.”
Upper St. Clair also won the 200 freestyle relay, but even that win wasn’t enough to dethrone North Allegheny, which extended its WPIAL girls swimming record string of team titles to 13, 425-249, over second-place Seneca Valley.
“It says that we’re obviously doing something right and I’ve hired a lot of great coaches that have helped shape our young swimmers so that they’re ready to swim,” North Allegheny coach Patrick Wenzel said. “Our freshmen swim like seniors and, when they do that, you have a chance of putting these streaks together.”
Senior Molly Smyers helped put North Allegheny over the top with her first career victory in the 200 individual medley and completed a career sweep with her fourth win in the 500 freestyle.
“It feels amazing and there’s quite a lot of pressure and it doesn’t get easier,” Smyers said. “I just kind of work hard every year and it’s always nice to know that my hard work has paid off.”