Unbeatable at WPIAL meet, Mt. Pleasant star Lily King joins elite list with 8th gold medal

By: Michael Love
Friday, February 28, 2025 | 8:28 PM

Previous Next

Eight is great for Lily King.

The Mt. Pleasant senior and N.C. State commit, one of the WPIAL’s all-time greats, joined an ultra-exclusive club Friday at the WPIAL Class 2A championships at Pitt’s Trees Pool.

King captured the 100-yard freestyle for the fourth time in 47.65 seconds, shattering her own WPIAL and Pitt pool records (48.21 from 2024).

The victory completed a sweep off all eight of her WPIAL individual swims since her freshman year of 2022. On Thursday, she won the 200 free for the third time after taking the 50 free title as a freshman.

Penn Hills’ Melanie Buddemyer (1981-84), Hampton’s Matt Harrigan (1994-97) and Gateway’s Olivia Livingston (2017-20) had completed the sweep in previous seasons.

Earlier Friday, Mt. Lebanon’s Sylvia Roy finished off her sweep with a win in the Class 3A 100 backstroke.

About 10 minutes after King’s victory, Indiana’s Preston Kessler won the Class 2A boys 100 free for his eighth individual title.

“This means a lot, and it goes to show just how far I’ve come as a swimmer,” she said. “It’s a credit to all the work I’ve put in over the years and what (head coach) Sandy (Felice) has helped me put in, everything that we’ve done together as a team. It’s a great way to finish that. I am just so happy with how I did.”

King now will go after a sweet 16 at states as she owns PIAA gold in all six of her previous individual swims at Bucknell.

Mt. Pleasant senior David Mutter talked with his coaches earlier in the year about what his WPIAL schedule could be with his two individual and two relay races.

He made a change from the 200 free to the 500 free, and the move paid off with his second WPIAL title at this year’s championships.

Mutter followed up Thursday’s WPIAL-record win in the 100 fly with gold Friday in the 500. He cut 13 seconds from his seed time to 4:34.54, two seconds clear of runner-up Soren Cooper, a senior from Shady Side Academy.

“I had a strategy going into the race where I was going to keep with the top leaders,” he said. “Then I was going to build. My last 75, I just went all out as fast as I could. It’s nice to have that competition up there to keep a fast pace going. Basically, for the last 100, it’s about who has the most left in the tank to finish it off.”

Senior Kiersten O’Connor was the third Mt. Pleasant swimmer to win two WPIAL gold medals at this year’s championships. She won her third 50 free title Thursday, and on Friday, she captured her first 100 backstroke gold medal.

Her time of 54.62 bested a field of contenders that included 2024 champion Lainey Sheets, a junior from Hampton. Sheets landed in second (55.56).

“Each year, I’ve swum against some amazing competition (in the 100 back),” O’Connor said. “Competition is what makes you a better swimmer. I am so grateful for people like Lainey who is able to push me and make me a better swimmer. It is a great atmosphere.”

O’Connor was third in the 100 back as a sophomore and second as a freshman. Mapletown’s Ella Menear was the WPIAL champ both of those years.

Mt. Pleasant senior Joseph Gardner is back on top in the Class 2A boys 100 breast.

The 2023 champion who finished runner-up last year to Indiana graduate Alex Bauer ascended to the top of the podium Friday in a winning time of 55.77.

The former WPIAL record holder in the event was just off the 55.27 he recorded at WPIALs last year. His personal best is 51.14 from the Pitt Christmas Meet in December 2023.

“This feels good,” said Gardner, who was runner-up to Northgate junior Sam Cavanaugh in the 200 IM Thursday. “I am happy with my time. It’s a good time going into states. I am just trying to swim as fast as I can on any given day.”

The Mt. Pleasant girls 400 free relay of King, sophomore Riley Shinsky, senior Maddie Barrick and junior Lainey Brown finished first in a time of 3:33.46.

King made up a four-second deficit in the anchor leg to overtake runner-up Franklin Regional junior Magdelina Hull, sophomore Jamie Kociela sophomore Aidah Holm and sophomore Scarlett Zolnak.

The Panthers relay finished in a time of 3:36.11.

Mt. Pleasant earned 40 points for the win. Indiana’s sixth-place finish gave it 26 points, and it edged the Vikings by 2.5 points for the team title.

“I am really proud of everybody and how we all swam the past two days,” Brown said. “We aren’t fully tapered yet, so I think a lot of us can go faster. We wanted to beat Indiana really bad, but we swam our best, and that is all you can do.”

Gardner’s 20 points that came with his 100 breast win helped the Mt. Pleasant boys solidify second place with 261 points. Indiana won its second-straight boys team title with 322.5 points.

While Mt. Pleasant swimmers grabbed most of the headlines Friday, there were others from the area who excelled.

Southmoreland junior Allison Stinnett was the third seed to Knoch’s Giona Lavorini and Indiana’s Peyton Scott in the girls 100 breast, but Stinnett bumped up one space and edged out Scott for silver in a time of 1:03.74.

Lavorini won her second 100 breast title in a row with a 1:03.03, while Scott, the 2022 and 2003 champion in the event, touched the wall in 1:03.84.

Mt. Pleasant junior Gunnar Probst placed third in the boys 100 free (48.85), while Hull picked up another individual medal for Franklin Regional with a third in the girls 500 free (5:16.89).

She also was third in the 200 free Thursday.

Class 3A

Chris Heese placed fourth in last year’s WPIAL Class 2A boys 100-yard breaststroke with a time of 58.09 seconds.

Latrobe moved up to Class 3A this year, and the Wildcats junior hoped for bigger things Friday against a whole new crop of competitors.

The move didn’t provide a roadblock for Heese, the sixth seed, who came from Lane 7 to capture the 100 breast title in a school-record 55.94, just one one-hundredth of a second faster than Fox Chapel senior Owen Howell and three one-hundredths ahead of Foxes senior Christian Dantey.

“Wow, that was something else,” Heese said shortly after the race with adrenaline fueling his thoughts. “I came in today feeling really good. I was pumped. It was such a close finish. Out of the corner of my eye, I wasn’t sure who touched first. But I looked up and saw that I had won. It felt awesome. All my hard work paid off.”

Heese’s 100 breast finals time was more than three seconds faster than his seed time of 59.60.

He also secured the automatic berth to the PIAA state meet at Bucknell University that goes to each individual and relay winner from the WPIAL championships.

Other state qualifiers will be determined based on times recorded at each of the district or regional meets. The at-large selections are expected to be released Sunday on the PIAA website.

Heese came back after taking fourth in the 50 free Thursday morning.

He then refocused with senior Patrick Cratty, junior Charlie Thomson and Heinrich van der Westhuizen to take second in the 400 free relay with a finals time of 3:08.51, more than 10 seconds faster than their seed time. It was the biggest jump from a seed time among the 19 teams entered.

The Latrobe boys finished seventh in the team standings with 152 points, 28 clear of eighth-place Franklin Regional.

Latrobe senior Lauren Bell finished third in the 100 free (52.21) after coming in second last year.

She took second in the final heat, but Woodland Hills sophomore Cameron Peretti made a charge from the No. 14 seed to finish as the runner-up with a time of 52.18.

Ava Komoroski, a sophomore from Peters Township, won her first WPIAL title in a time of 51.68.

Norwin sophomore Amber Klingensmith added a third-place finish (57.24) in the 100 backstroke to the WPIAL title she won in the 100 butterfly from Day 1.

She bumped up one spot from the fourth seed and dropped more than a second from her seed time.

Michael Love is a TribLive reporter covering sports in the Alle-Kiski Valley and the eastern suburbs of Pittsburgh. A Clearfield native and a graduate of Westminster (Pa.), he joined the Trib in 2002 after spending five years at the Clearfield Progress. He can be reached at mlove@triblive.com.

Tags: Latrobe, Mt. Pleasant