WPIAL swimmers break records on Day 1 of Class AAA meet

By: HSSN Staff
Thursday, March 1, 2018 | 1:52 PM

Previous Next

Previous Next

Three WPIAL records fell on Day 1 of the WPIAL Class AAA championships at Pitt's Trees Pool.

North Allegheny junior Jack Wright kicked off the record-breaking swims with a new top mark of 1 minute, 37.82 seconds in the boys 200-yard freestyle.

His time was more than two seconds ahead of the field.

A couple of events later, Gateway sophomore Olivia Livingston defended her girls 50 free title and broke her own record with a time of 22.71.

She was more than a half of a second better than runner-up Ellie Tiskus, a junior from Oakland Catholic, who posted a time of 23.24

The third record closed out the session as the North Allegheny quartet of Wright, senior Mason Gonzalez, sophomore Rick Mihm and senior Andrew Zhang swam a blistering time of 1:21.15 in the 200 free relay, breaking their own record of 1:22.93 set last year.

Gonzalez came as close as he possibly could to breaking his own record in the 50 free. He swam to a winning time of 20.06, one one-hundredth of a second off the record he established at the 2017 championships.

The other WPIAL champions from Day 1 included North Allegheny (Mary Flavin, Molly Smyers, Ann Juneau and Kristine Mihm) in the girls 200 free relay (1:36.16), Penn Hills junior Kimani Gregory in the boys 100 butterfly (48.45), Mt. Lebanon junior Trinity Ward in the girls 100 fly (55.16), Rick Mihm in the boys 200 individual medley (1:49.46), Butler sophomore Laura Goettler in the girls 200 IM (2:02.49) and Upper St. Clair senior Abby Matheny in the girls 200 free (1:51.38).

The session began with Mt. Lebanon's girls 200 medley relay quartet of Hannah Morelli, Maddie Dorish, Ward and Libby Mcdyer winning the title in a time of 1:45.00.

The North Allegheny boys 200 medley relay of Zhang, Jerry Chen, Gonzalez and Joe Songer then brought home WPIAL gold with a time of 1:30.97.

Each event is scored up to 16th place, and through six events, the North Allegheny boys have 248 points, 106 more than second-place Upper St. Clair (142). Central Catholic is third (110).

On the girls side, North Allegheny leads the way with 179 points. Mt. Lebanon is second (147), and Upper St. Clair is one point behind in third (146).

The Class AAA championships continue at 10 a.m. Friday with the 100 free, 500 free, 100 backstroke, 100 breaststroke and 400 free relay.

Michael Love is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach him at mlove@tribweb.com or via Twitter @Mlove_Trib.