Pine-Richland’s Vacula earns trip to PIAA swimming championships
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Friday, March 6, 2020 | 5:15 PM
Pine Richland’s Mila Cribbs competes in the girls 100 butterfly during the 2020 AAA WPIAL Swimming and Diving Championship at Trees Pool on Thursday, Feb. 27, 2020.
Pine Richland’s Will Laubacher competes in the boys 200 freestyle during the 2020 AAA WPIAL Swimming and Diving Championship at Trees Pool on Thursday, Feb. 27, 2020.
Winners in the boys’ AAA 200 yard individual medley Rick Mihm of North Allegheny in first place, Josh Matheny of Upper St. Clair in second place, Daniel Simoes of Seneca Valley in third place, Ethan Song of North Allegheny in fourth place, Will Retsch of Hampton in fifth place, Trent Vacula oof Pine Richland in sixth place, Sam Deemer of Butler in seventh place, and Haihan Xu of Seneca Valley in eighth place on Thursday, Feb. 27, 2020 at Joe C. Trees Pool at University of Pittsburgh.
At the WPIAL Class AAA swimming championships Feb. 27-28 at Pitt’s Trees Pool, Trent Vacula turned in the best 200-yard individual medley time in Pine-Richland history.
The Rams sophomore finished in 1 minute, 56.83 seconds to take sixth in the event and earn a spot on the podium.
His time also qualified him for the PIAA Class AAA championships this week at Bucknell.
Prior to the WPIAL championships, Pine-Richland swimming coach Pete Barry said he expected Vacula to perform well in the 200 IM and the 500 freestyle. Vacula delivered on both, taking 11th in the 500 free with a time of 4:47.12 to go along with his sixth place in the IM.
To add to his stellar event, Vacula combined with Justin Bogacz, Matthew Carper and Will Laubacher to take 12th in the 200 freestyle relay.
The same quartet of Rams swimmers also snared 13th in the 400 freestyle relay at WPIALs.
Vacula’s school-record finish headlined Pine-Richland’s strong showing at the swimming championships as senior Alyssa Schonbachler grabbed 13th place in the 100 backstroke.
Bogacz, a freshman, also scored top-20 finishes in the 100 butterfly and 100 free, clocking in at 53.57 to take 17th in the former and racing a 49.31 to finish in 19th in the latter.
The Pine-Richland boys finished in 17th place with 37 points. North Allegheny won the WPIAL Class AAA meet with 380. The P-R girls finished 23rd with 11 points. North Allegheny won that meet with 422.
Tags: Pine-Richland
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