North Allegheny’s Grant Regule looks to add another gold medal to collection

By: John Grupp
Saturday, February 22, 2025 | 11:01 AM

North Allegheny’s Grant Regule already owns one state championship in the pool as a senior, and now he’s searching for more gold in the water.

A member of NA’s 2024 state champion water polo team, Regule is poised to defend his WPIAL Class 3A title in the 50 freestyle and lead the favored Tigers to their third straight district crown.

“I am feeling very strong with our team this year,” Regule said. “I believe we will be able to defend our WPIAL title. … I think we might even have a shot at the state title this year.”

Regule (rhymes with “eagle”) was a 30-goal scorer for the Tigers’ water polo team, which won its first state championship since 2013 in November and was honored Feb. 3 in Harrisburg.

The 6-foot-3, 195-pounder missed about a month of swimming practices — but kept in shape in the pool for water polo — and joined the swim team with his sights on a solid senior year.

“He’s a big, strong boy, and he’s doing a really great job in his training,” NA coach Patrick Wenzel said. “The transition (from water polo) is more of you are doing something different in the water. It’s no longer a game. It’s a little more training. Sometimes it’s hard to transition mentally into the swimming, but physically he’s totally fine.”

Regule, who committed to swim at Division I Loyola (Md.), has the third-fastest 50 freestyle this season (21.40 seconds) in the WPIAL Jan. 28 rankings. His season-best is a 21.09 for his club team while winning the 47-swimmer event at the 62nd annual Christmas Meet in mid-December at Pitt.

At the WPIAL championships Feb. 27-28 at Pitt’s Trees Pool, Regule will compete in the 50 free, the 100 free and on a pair of to-be-determined relay teams. Regule won gold medals on the 200 medley relay and 200 freestyle relay teams last season, while placing second in the 100 free. He currently is ranked fifth in the 100 free with a time of 47.09 seconds but hasn’t begun to taper in preparation for the season-ending meets.

“He’s always had a lot of talent,” Wenzel said, “and he definitely has the willingness to learn.”

Regule has a lot of company in the WPIAL rankings. North Allegheny senior Gus Miller (50 free, 100 back, 100 breast) and juniors Danny Lesinski (100 back, 100 fly, 200 IM) and Zach Totin (100 free, 100 fly) are top-five in multiple events. The North Allegheny boys have won the WPIAL team title 16 times in the past 19 years.

One of Regule’s goals this season is to post WPIAL-qualifying times in every event. He still needs to hit the mark in two events (500 free, 200 IM) and planned to take his shot in the final two regular-season meets.

“It will be a challenge,” he said. “I tried to do it last year, and I got everything except 100 breast. I want to get it this year.”

Regule prepared for his senior season by competing at the USA Swimming Futures Championships on July 25-28 in Richmond, Va. He set personal-best long course times in the 50 free, placing 29th among 95 swimmers in 24.08, and in the 100 free (54.54).

“He holds a lot of water, which means he has a good feel for it,” Wenzel said. “He’s holding from the front of his fingers to the back end of the stroke. He’s just holding a ton of water.”

Tags: North Allegheny