Surreal end to swimming season
LEWISBURG » This year’s PIAA Class 3A swimming and diving championships came to an abrupt halt on Thursday.
Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the PIAA elected to conclude the competition, held at Bucknell University’s Kinney Natorium, after girls diving.
The morning swims on Thursday served as timed finals, which was not announced until after the events were contested.
As a result, many swimmers left the venue not knowing they’d earned medals, particularly the boys, who had the first swimming session this year.
“I made that decision after speaking with our executive director back at the office,” said meet director Melissa Mertz, the associate executive director of the PIAA. “They had conference calls this morning about canceling basketball, postponing basketball championships as well.
“I felt that we could not continue swimming with basketball canceling as well. PIAA is pretty much shutting down any of our tournaments that we had going on. That in addition to information that we got from the governor’s office and the Department of Health, its the right thing to do. And Bucknell has also canceled all of their spring sports as well. All of their students have to leave as well.”
Medals will be mailed to recipients and the PIAA will try to hand deliver the trophies to the team titlists.
Based on his Thursday morning swim, Chris Guiliano of Daniel Boone finished third in the 100-yard freestyle in 44.55.
This goes along with the gold he won on Wednesday for his triumph in the 200 freestyle.
For Owen J. Roberts, Dalton Fink took eighth in the 100 backstroke (50.69). He then led off the 400 freestyle relay for Will Cano, Nathan VanNatter and Jonah Kasznay. They finished 12th (3:12.11).
Perkiomen Valley’s Jacob Replogle was eighth in the 500 freestyle (4:35.51).
Nolan Benner of Boyertown was 12th in the 100 freestyle (46.64).
Also for Boyertown, Owen Miller took 21st in the 100 freestyle (47.56). He led off the 400 freestyle relay for Noah Vivian, Connor Stoudt and Benner. The foursome finished 20th (3:14.48).
Benner took 22nd in the 100 breaststroke (58.53).
Upper Merion ended the meet with 15th place in the 400 freestyle relay. Michael Lemishko, Jack Larkin, Andrew Hoy and Cody Nguyen finished in 3:13.42.
Lemishko wound up 22nd in the 100 backstroke (52.23).
Sean Lyman of Upper Perkiomen was 22nd in the 500 freestyle (4:43.93).
Spring-Ford’s Brendan Baganski finished 23rd in the 100 freestyle (47.90) while teammate Luke McKenna was 31st in the 500 freestyle (4;47.78).
Baganski and McKenna were joined by Andrew Cubbler and Cory Laing to finish 26th in the 400 freestyle relay (3:16.74).
Jack Hussin of Phoenixville took 27th in the 500 freestyle (4:47.20).
For the girls, Gabrielle McKee of Boyertown finished fifth in the 500 freestyle (4:57.73).
The Owen J. Roberts foursome of Mikala Niness, Lauren Zelinske, Eliana Crew and Abbey Malmstrom took fifth in the 400 freestyle relay (3:30.39).
Niness was 13th in the 100 freestyle (51.88) and Malmstrom took 24th in the 100 backstroke (57.55).
Erini Pappas of Phoenixville ended up in eighth place in the 100 backstroke (55.80).
Upper Merion’s Liindsay Yuen finished 16th in the 100 breaststroke (1:05.24).
Gabby Filzen of Perkiomen Valley was 18th in diving (256.30 points).