Mt. Lebanon’s Roy sets record in 100 back
Sylvia Roy had something of a disappointing secondplace finish in the 50-yard freestyle on the first day of the PIAA Class 3A meet
But the Mt. Lebanon junior was all smiles on Day 2.
Roy not only defended her state title in the 100 backstroke at Bucknell University’s Kinney Natatorium, she broke a 10-year old state record. She swam 52.90 to beat the old mark of 53.08 set in 2014 by Hershey’s Meaghan Raab.
PIAA swimming
She gave a pretty good indication she had the potential to break the record when she posted an all-American time of 53.63 in the morning preliminaries, which was a 0.47-second drop from her WPIAL championship time of 54.10.
Roy was one of two WPIAL swimmers to be a top seed heading into the evening finals. North Allegheny senior Natalie Sens set the pace with a 1:02.25 in the morning, 0.08 seconds faster than Sarah Pasquella of Fox Chapel.
Just the like WPIAL finals, Sens got the job done.
Sens, who finished second in 2022 and third in 2023, swam a 1: 01.48 to edge Pasquella by 0.32 seconds to close out her high school career with a state title.
Sens and Roy were the only swimmers to win state titles.
A day after Seneca Valley senior Isaiah Clerkley capped off his high school career with a dominant 570.40 to win the state title in the boys diving competition, it was the girls turn to see if the WPIAL could pull off a classification sweep.
There was potential as North Allegheny went 1-2-3 in the WPIAL Class 3A girls diving competition and, a year ago, Christina Shi capped her Tigers career with a state title before heading off to Harvard.
But things were different in the state championship.
To the Tigers credit, all three of their divers finished in the top 10, but the gold proved elusive. It was Avery Hiller of Conestoga who finished with a 478.40, to win the title for the first time.
North Allegheny junior Juliet Hood, the WPIAL runner-up, took silver. WPIAL champion Lola Malarkey was third with a 440.70 and sophomore teammate Maggie Lapina was 10th.
Franklin Regional senior Holden Thomas has the best performance in the pool of any WPIAL boys swimmer as he finished second in the 100 backstroke with a 48.30. He was 1.56 seconds faster than his morning qualifying time, but still finished second to Ridley senior Shane Eckler (47.81).
Central Catholic junior McClellan Clark entered the state finals as the top seed in the 500 freestyle, but slipped to the third spot in the evening finals. Conestoga senior Can Yeniay came out of the No. 2 spot in Lane 5 with an outstanding 4:20.60 to edge out Sam Huggins of State College by 3.35 seconds and left Clark in third, 6.17 seconds off the pace.
Also finishing with a bronze medal was Ryan Frank of Mt. Lebanon who swam 55.43 to finish behind Conestoga’s Jake Wang, who set a pool record 52.36 in the 100 breaststroke.