Pine-Richland swimmer Alex Steger fares well at WPIALs

By: HSSN Staff
Sunday, March 4, 2018 | 11:25 PM

Pine-Richland senior Alex Steger closed his WPIAL career with a strong performance at the Class AAA swimming championships at Pitt's Trees Pool this past week, collecting two top-eight individual finishes and helping to string together a productive relay race with his Rams teammates.

Steger took eighth in the 100-yard butterfly event with a time of 51.78 seconds and followed that up with a tie for eighth in the 100 backstroke at 52.28.

“He definitely performed very well overall. We knew those events were going to be tough. We were just trying to get him up there on the balcony with a top-eight finish, and he was able to do it,” Pine-Richland coach Pete Barry said.

“We had to pick our events with him because we wanted him to get up there on the podium. Hopefully he'll get to swim again. We'll figure out this week if his times were good enough to make it out.”

Neither finish grants Steger an automatic bid to the PIAAs, but with at-large bids being awarded Tuesday, he might have a shot at another race or two in his Pine-Richland swimsuit.

Steger also combined with Jacob Garretson, Max Campbell and Amaan Kazi to take 15th in the 400 freestyle relay with a time of 3:21.97.

Kevin Lohman is a freelance writer.

Tags: Pine-Richland