Mapletown’s Menear set for an encore
State champion a singular talent striving for more
Ella Menear didn’t swim in the WPIAL her freshman year, but she has made up for it over the past two seasons.
Since moving to tiny Mapletown High School from Martinsville, Va., she has won four WPIAL Class 2A individual titles and two state championships.
And she has one more year left to put the final stamp on her career.
“I am really focusing on my training going into the WPIALs and states this year,” Menear said. “My goals this season are to defend my championships in the WPIALs and, hopefully, come out with one or two golds at states.”
Menear has won the WPIAL titles in both the 200yard individual medley and the 100 backstroke each of the past two seasons and set the record in the latter event with a 54.10 at Trees Pool in March.
She captured the state championship in the 100 backstroke in 2021 and the 200 individual medley in 2022.
Finishing her career with six WPIAL titles would put her in elite company, as would adding another state championship or two to her resume.
But she’s already made plans past this season after committing to the University of Alabama.
It will also be a change being on an actual team in college, because Mapletown doesn’t have a swim team. Menear trains on her own, gets her qualifying times at other schools.
She represents the Maples as an independent swimmer.
Menear won’t be the only Class 2A girls swimmer looking to defend her state title.
Northgate junior Elise Nardozzi will be back as the reigning champion in the 200 freestyle and will face her biggest challenge in the WPIAL finals.
The top returning challenger in the field will be Shady Side Academy senior Maeve Kelley, who was third in the event.
Only one WPIAL swimmer is returning to defend two state titles and that’s Mount Pleasant sophomore Lily King, who set a PIAA Class 2A record in the 50 freestyle with a 22.65.
She also won the 100 freestyle.
King will also be the lynchpin if the Vikings are to repeat as WPIAL champions. They won their first title last year.
Class 2A boys
If there was a word to describe the WPIAL’s overall performance in the 2022 state championships, it would have to be dominant. Of the 11 events, including relays, contested in the PIAA Class 2A finals, WPIAL competitors won eight golds and three silvers. And three of the four individual gold medalists are back.
Indiana sophomore Preston Kessler returns as the defending champion in the 100 and 200 freestyles, Southmorelandsenior Henry Miller is the reigning titleist in the 100 butterfly, Northgate senior and Brown recruit Matthew Purcell will have an opportunity to make it two in a row in the 500 freestyle and Riverside junior Joe Roth will have a shot to break his state record 48.44 in the 100 backstroke.
Hampton will try to win its third consecutive WPIAL team title.
Class 3A girls
It’s a question that teams have been asking for 14 consecutive years: Can anyone knock off North Allegheny? The Tigers have been dominant in their WPIAL-record 14-year reign as champions.
Now that they own the girls record, though, they can set their sights on the WPIAL allsports mark of 20 in a row set by the Bethel Park boys swimming team from 1981-2000.
What will help the Tigers once again this year will be their diving, as the team returns Harvard recruit and defending state champion Christina Shi, along with sophomore Lola Malarkey.
North Allegheny will also feature Duquesne signee Lexi Sundgren, who was the state runner-up in the 500 freestyle.
Fox Chapel, however, only finished second by 30 points last year and will have a solid team, led by senior Sophie Shao, who has committed to swim at Brown.
Class 4A boys
Seneca Valley ended a 49year drought with a WPIAL team title last year and added to it at Bucknell when it brought home the school’s first state swimming championship.
Repeating will be a challenge. Seneca Valley lost several key members of the team to graduation, but the Raiders’ cupboard is anything but bare, with senior Haihan Xu, a Cornell recruit, as well as senior Gavin Blazer.