Boys hoops Top of the Crop gets released

Sports Editor Mark Podolski has this week’s News-Herald boys basketball Top of the Crop. The list holds steady, with Mentor at No. 1, and one change in the bottom half of the rankings.

There was a time, in the history of Western Reserve Conference swim meet, particularly back to its earliest incarnation in the old Premier Athletic Conference, that one truth was inescapable.

Swims from that meet — with noted deference and respect given to the swimmers who got many of these programs off the ground — would barely register among the fastest locally. Nor would it yield much comfort in pursuit of district-qualifying or state at-large swim.

Slowly but surely, that tide has turned, and this year’s edition of the WRC meet Jan. 17 showed how far that progress has come.

In all, 56 swims from the WRC meet qualified for the latest round of News-Herald coverage area leaders — 32 for the girls and 24 for the boys. Five of those 56 are this area’s fastest times in their respective events to date: Chardon’s Lachlan Koenen (boys 200 free) and Gracie Duchon (girls 100 fly), Madison’s Mark Hribar (boys 50 and 100 free) and Mayfield’s Gianna Leffler (girls 100 back).

“It’s exciting,” Hilltoppers coach Matt Parrish said. “I think swimming in all of Cleveland has a little bit less depth than there’s been. But, at the same time, the times are right up there in the state. So we have good programs — USA programs, high school programs, that over the past decade or so have really started turning it on. So it’s not surprising here that the times are getting better and better.

“It takes a couple of superstars and super swims to get these programs sparking. It’s fun to watch. We’ve watched Riverside grow. We’ve watched West G grow. We’ve watched Perry grow. We’ve watched a lot of these teams get bigger and bigger, and I know a lot of these kids from summer. So it’s really encouraging to see a lot of these programs getting bigger and better.”

Here are more highlights from the WRC meet not already mentioned in coverage:

• The Riverside boys had six top threes as they won their first PAC/WRC meet title since 2015 and fourth overall with 334 points. Freshman Matthew Hribar was first in 100 breaststroke and second in 200 IM.

• Duchon’s 2:11.18 to win 200 IM is a .20 drop from her winning time at WRC last winter. A 32.79 back split is good for a 2.43 drop vs. when she was second at the D-I SPIRE Sectional a year ago.

• In addition to his 200 free title, Koenen also had a solid 4:54.27 to take 500 free. That’s a 6.10 cut from the 2020 D-II SPIRE Sectional and 1.94 from when he was fifth in the event at the D-II CSU District. The WRC swim featured a 30.44-30.53-30.45-30.17 middle-split run.

• Mayfield freshman Danielle Grande rallied for a 500 free crown on the girls side with a sterling back half en route to a 5:18.30. She hit a 32.88 seventh 50 and a 32.47 on her eighth 50 to take a .23 lead. Her 29.75 to close marked a 2.09 drop vs. Viking preliminaries the afternoon prior, when she barely missed qualifying for the ‘A’ final with a 5:25.69 for 11th.

• With four firsts, two individually in 200 individual medley and 100 fly and on the winning 200 and 400 free relays, Duchon is now third for career PAC/ WRC titles with one year to go with nine, trailing only Mayfield’s Gianna Ferrante (15) and Madison’s Alison Smith (10).

• There have now been 67 different swimmers in the history of the PAC/WRC meet who has won at least one individual-event title.

• Runner-up finishers in individual events not already mentioned in coverage were South’s Brennen Bittner (200 and 500 free), Chardon’s Nathan Bender (50 and 100 free), Levi Rogers (100 back), Morgan Debevec (50 free) and Campbell Tierney (100 back), Kenston’s Nick Korenowski (100 fly), Madison’s Cole Frisby (100 breast) and Jena Parks (100 fly), Mayfield’s Danielle Grande (200 free), Lauren Furnas (200 IM), Gianna Leffler (100 free) and Emma Burkey (100 breast) and Riverside’s Samantha Smith (500 free).