PENN HILLS GREAT SET LASTING STANDARD
Records fall every year at the WPIAL Class 3A swimming championships.
No matter the event. No matter the pedigree of the athlete who set the standard. Every single boys and girls record has been broken at the finals within the past 10 years.
Except for one.
In 1984, Penn Hills senior Melanie Buddemeyer wasn’t looking to break records at the WPIAL finals. She was already a world-class swimmer, a member of the U.S. National Team, had committed to North Carolina and was gearing up for a shot at the Olympics in Los Angeles.
“To be honest, I always had senior nationals immediately following WPIALs and states,” Buddemeyer said. “I never really fully tapered for WPIALs and states.”
Buddemeyer, a WPIAL Hall of Fame inductee, had already won the 200-yard individual medley for the fourth time on the first day of the meet — and set a record that stood for 16 years in the process — but it was what she did in her signature event, the 100 butterfly, that still has swimmers chasing her to this day.
In the final Buddemeyer, who set the record in the 100 butterfly each of her four years, became the first and, to date, only swimmer to win the event four times. She also became the only eight-time individual champion in WPIAL history when she hit the wall in 54.16 seconds, beating second-place Melanie Wirtner of Bethel Park by a whopping 4.11 seconds.
To this day, she still holds the three fastest times in WPIAL history in the 100 butterfly. She swam a 54.81 as a sophomore and a 54.32 her junior year. But no one has even come within half a second of her record time in the past 35 years.
And though she doesn’t really follow whether or not her record still holds year after year, she doesn’t have to.
“I wasn’t really paying particular attention to high school swimming, but people will text me from the meet actually before I get any results. People have done that throughout the years,” Buddemeyer said. “People will text me and tell me and that’s how I find out really quickly.”
North Allegheny alumna Kayla Churman gave Buddemeyer a run for her money in 2014 when, as a junior for the Tigers, she became only the second person ever to go lower than 55 seconds when she finished in 54.86 for the second of her three 100 butterfly titles.
“I think the first time I went under a minute was sophomore year and that was a shock because, freshman year, I had a concussion all year,” Churman said. “I didn’t even know I’d be swimming after that and I was more of a backstroker going into high school.”
After Churman graduated, the onus of breaking Buddemeyer’s record has fallen to Mt. Lebanon’s Trinity Ward, who this year has an opportunity to become only the second person to win the event four times. Her best time to date came her sophomore year when she posted the fifth-fastest time in WPIAL history with a 55.08.
“That’s something that I would definitely like to do and I expect myself to do it, but my focus is on states,” Ward said. “I won’t be 100 completely ready at WPIALs, but I still think I can do it.”
What may be most surprising about the longevity of Buddemeyer’s record is how the sport itself has changed over the years.
Swimming has become a year-round sport and land training has become a complement to performance in the water. Equipment is also different as athletes use suits specially designed to repel water and give the swimmers almost frictionless laps.
“I’m just so amazed she was able to do it at that time. I’ve heard a lot of good things about her, so I really admire and respect her,” Ward said. “If I do get that record, it would obviously be great for me, but I have to say that I respect her because her doing it at that time was more impressive than me doing it now.”
Still, when Ward and the rest of the competitors in the 100 butterfly stand on the blocks at Pitt’s Trees Pool in early March, they will all have the singular goal of erasing both a benchmark and a legacy that has stood for 35 years.
“I don’t mean to sound indifferent, but it’s hard for me to imagine people looking at my name to this day,” Buddemeyer said. “I never really got hung up on that as a swimmer. I just tried to do my personal best and tried to qualify for this team or that team and, even now, it’s difficult for me to think that someone is looking at that heat sheet and seeing my name, but it is flattering.”