Zelinske, Gutshall, Padilla shine brightest at PACs
GRATERFORD » Three of the top Pioneer Athletic Conference swimmers had a busy and extremely successful day in the league’s girls championship meet Saturday at Perkiomen Valley High School.
Owen J. Roberts senior Lauren Zelinske, Spring-Ford junior Ashley Gutshall and Phoenixville sophomore Kenzie Padilla each competed in two individual and two relay events and racked up a combined total of eight first-place finishes and three pool records in the final tune-up before the District 1 meet in two weeks.
Owen J. Roberts – the undefeated regular season dual meet champion – finished first with 54 points, followed by Spring-Ford with 37 and Phoenixville with 26.
Zelinske swam in three of the final four events and placed first in all of them – with a time of 5:13.47 in the 500 freestyle, a 58.65 mark in the 100 backstroke and as the second leg in the winning 400 free relay that recorded a time of 3:37.14 and edged Spring-Ford by .55 seconds. She began the day as part of the Wildcats’ 200 medley relay team that finished second to Spring-Ford.
She’ll be doing at least the 200 free and 100 back at districts and maybe more.
Gutshall won the 50 free – where she finished sixth in the state last year – in 24.08 and placed first in the 100 free at 53.14. She began the day by anchoring the winning 200 medley relay team (Maris Sadowski, Sydney Koehler, Abby Koehler and Gutshall) that set pool and school records at 1:48.42. And though her 400 free relay team finished a close second, she set a pool record for a first leg of 51.84.
She plans to do all four events at the two-day district meet.
“Yep, I can,” she said. “It will be nice to move one event to the second day.”
As for Saturday’s meet, she was pleased with her performance and enjoyed having the whole team together one last time.
“I’m very, very, very happy,” she said. “It’s so much fun. It’s nice to have everyone on the pool deck again and all the boys (who competed on Friday night) were here.”
Padilla was part of the thirdplace team in the 200 medley relay and followed that with a win in the next event with a time of 1:53.17 in the 200 free. Then she swam a pool record time of 55.84 in the 100 butterfly, where she placed fourth in the state last year. She was also a part of the 200 free relay team that finished second.
“I’ll swim the 100 fly in districts. I’m not sure what else,” she said.
Some of that depends upon whether or not either of the Phantom relay teams advance.
“That was a big surprise,” she said. “We got district consideration times in both of them. We’re happy we got it. We weren’t sure how our relays would be this year. We graduated a lot of people.”
Padilla was happy to compete in a PAC meet for the first time.
“It was so much fun,” she said. “I’m a sophomore, so I didn’t get to have PAC’s last year. I got to go to PAC’s in cross country in the fall (finishing third individually as Phoenixville won the title). Liza Barbash (who helped the Phantoms to their two strong relay finishes on Saturday) was on the cross country team too this year. Swimming has lived up to the expectations of cross country.”
Methacton (fourth with 24 points) won the 200 free relay in 1:42.11 and Warrior sophomore Madison Wimmer swam a 2:11.64 for first place in the 200 individual medley. Upper Merion senior Lindsay Yuen won the 100 breaststroke with a time of 1:05.68.
The district meet will take place on February 25 and 26 at the York County YMCA.