D2 Swimming Championships: Cougars, Spartans among Class 3A gold medal winners

WILKES-BARRE — In her freshman season last year, Hazleton Area swimmer Lia Ochs introduced herself to the rest of the district with two gold medals.

This year, Ochs needed just two events to duplicate the feat as a sophomore, with plenty of competition left to go.

Ochs swam the second leg and helped Hazleton Area win gold in the meet-opening 200 Medley Relay, then returned to the pool for the very next event and won the 200 Free.

“I had my relay with my friends, we really just pep talked with each other before the relay,” Ochs said. “I was kind of ready for my next event too, I made sure to prepare myself for the back-to-back.”

She was the highlight of a strong day on both sides of the pool for Hazleton Area, sitting in fourth place in the Girls competition and second place in the Boys meet after the first day of action at the District 2 Class 3A Swimming Championships hosted by the Wyoming Valley CYC.

The Cougars are just a few points behind Tunkhannock in the girls standings, the Tigers winning one gold but reaching the medal podium in five of the six events on Friday.

Wyoming Valley West had a strong day in the boys tournament, Cole Bolesta capturing gold in the 200 Free and then helping lead the Spartans to a gold medal in the 200 Free Relay to close out the session.

The Williamsport girls and Abington Heights boys are the competition leaders heading into Saturday’s final five events; Abington Heights is the District 2 leader in the girls meet, with Williamsport representing District 4.

Saturday’s session will begin at 11 a.m. with five more events to wrap up the championships.

GIRLS

A strong start to the day for the Wyoming Valley Conference was countered by a dominant finishing stretch for Abington Heights, as the Comets won the last three events to slot themselves just six points behind Williamsport in the team standings.

Williamsport was the defending champ in the 200 Medley Relay to start the day, but Hazleton Area arrived at the CYC as the favorite by seed time and proved it with a 1:56.65 clip to win the gold, nearly three seconds clear of second-place Tunkhannock.

The Cougars were a bit behind after the first leg but took control during Ochs’ second leg and seized control for good with a strong third leg from Lorelei Lucas.

Ochs didn’t have long before her next race, but showed no signs of fatigue in a decisive 200 Free victory. She cleared the field by nearly nine seconds to win her second gold of the day.

“Our coach has been having us practice the second half of our events for awhile,” Ochs said. “I put that to work, made sure my kick was still moving toward the end because that’s been a problem for me.

The WVC made it three-for-three in the 200 IM, with Tunkhannock freshman Kaitlyn Keown holding off Valley West’s Karissa Legaspi in one of the closest finishes of the session.

Keown reached the wall in 2:17.80, Legaspi a tenth of a second behind at 2:17.90.

It was a busy day for Keown in her first taste of District 2 championship action; she started the meet swimming the opening leg for Tunkhannock in the 200 Medley Relay and finished it with the anchor leg for the Tigers’ 200 Free Relay, where they won the bronze medal.

“I tried to sprint more of my breaststroke than I usually do, it worked out pretty well,” Keown said. “I was a little nervous before, but I needed to get more in the zone, so I just calmed myself down. If I’m more calm, I’ll swim better.”

From there, it was all Abington Heights: Gianna Vachino won the 50 free, Hadley Pallman won the 100 Fly and the Comets won gold in the 200 Free Relay.

BOYS

Much like their teammates, the Abington Heights boys looked poised to end Friday’s session with three straight victories.

Derek Williams won the 50 free and Jason Casper set a new District 2 record in the 100 Fly, and the Comets were a pretty comfortable seeding favorite to win the final relay race.

But the Wyoming Valley West team of Bolesta, William Bell, David Nelson and Ricardo Albuquerque had other plans. The Spartans swam a 1:30.82 relay to win the gold, with Delaware Valley taking second and Abington Heights finishing in third.

“That’s what it means to be a Spartan, perseverance and determination,” Nelson said. “We’ve all been thinking about this since the beginning of the season.”

It was the second gold of the day for Bolesta, who broke through in the 200 Free after two straight second-place finishes in the event.

The senior wouldn’t be denied in his final chance at gold, cruising to victory with a time of 1:43.95.

“I’m really happy, I’ve been working for this all season,” Bolesta said. “I went back to last year’s race, looked at my mistakes from it and this year I gave it my all.”

In total, it was three Abington Heights wins, two Valley West wins and a victory in the 200 IM for Williamsport’s Evan Summers to round up Friday’s gold medal haul.

Hazleton Area didn’t win any golds in the session, but had as consistent a day as any team in the race.

The Cougars had medalists in all six events, led by a second-place finish from Chase Kaschak in the 200 Free. Cason Machey won bronze in that same event, and in total Hazleton Area won three of the six available medals in the race.

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District 2 Class 3A Swimming Championships

Girls Team Scores — 1. Williamsport (WIL) 159; 2. Abington Heights (AH) 153; 3. Tunkhannock (TUN) 117; 4. Hazleton Area (HAZ) 108; 5. Delaware Valley (DV) 68; 6. Wyoming Valley West (WVW) 61; 7. Pittston Area (PA) 53; 8. Wilkes-Barre Area (WBA) 28; 9. Berwick (BER) 21; 10. Nanticoke Area (NAN) 18; 11. West Scranton (WS) 17; 12. Scranton (SCR) 12.

Boys Team Scores — 1. Abington Heights (AH) 165; 2. Hazleton Area (HAZ) 141; 3. Delaware Valley (DV) 117; 4. Wyoming Valley West (WVW) 116; 5. Williamsport (WIL) 111; 6. West Scranton (WS) 56; 7. Wilkes-Barre Area (WBA) 37; 8. Scranton (SCR) 27; 9. Nanticoke Area (NAN) 19; 10. Pittston Area (PA) 14.

Girls 200 Medley Relay — 1. HAZ (Kathleen Rodgers, Lia Ochs, Lorelei Lucas, Mariannyi Brache Minaya) 1:56.65; 2. TUN 1:59.37; 3. WIL 1:59.84; 4. AH 2:05.96; 5. DV 2:10.96; 6. PA 2:12.49.

Boys 200 Medley Relay — 1. AH (Geoff Stanton, Derek Williams, Jason Casper, Charles Voytek) 1:37.71; 2. WIL 1:37.90; 3. HAZ 1:45.53; 4. WVW 1:46.18; 5. DV 1:49.18; 6. WS 1:50.26.

Girls 200 Free — 1. Lia Ochs (HAZ) 1:55.52; 2. Kiley Persun (WIL) 2:04.32; 3. Keira Legaspi (WVW) 2:04.50; 4. Miley Johnson (WIL) 2:10.36; 5. Dylana Richards (WIL) 2:11.46; 6. Brooke Hintze (PA) 2:13.40.

Boys 200 Free — 1. Cole Bolesta (WVW) 1:43.95; 2. Chase Kaschak (HAZ) 1:48.15; 3. Cason Machey (HAZ) 1:51.02; 4. William Bell (WVW) 1:51.07; 5. Charles Voytek (AH) 1:52.93; 6. Cody Scholl (HAZ) 1:54.48.

Girls 200 IM — 1. Kaitlyn Keown (TUN) 2:17.80; 2. Karissa Legaspi (WVW) 2:17.90; 3. Miranda Anderson (TUN) 2:26.87; 4. Kacey Johnson (AH) 2:29.69; 5. Elise Brown (AH) 2:32.04; 6. Kathleen Rodgers (HAZ) 2:33.16.

Boys 200 IM — 1. Evan Summers (WIL) 1:55.51; 2. Roy Ayala (WS) 1:57.00; 3. Geoff Stanton (AH) 2:01.49; 4. Ryan O’Connell (DV) 2:03.86; 5. Morris Hunsinger (HAZ) 2:09.64; 6. Samuel Schenk (HAZ) 2:11.92.

Girls 50 Free — 1. Gianna Vachino (AH) 25.36; 2. Aviya Halstead (WIL) 25.43; 3. Kaitlyn Giermanski (AH) 25.48; 4. Madelyn Graves (TUN) 26.13; 5. Ella Bannon (AH) 27.43; 6. Mariannyi Brache Minaya (HAZ) 27.57.

Boys 50 Free — 1. Derek Williams (AH) 21:04; 2. Brady Ross (WIL) 21:73; 3. Cooper Allmaras (WIL) 22:20; 4. Nicholas Pop (HAZ) 22.97; 5. Samuel Fisher (DV) 23.33; 6. Adrian Azar (AH) 23.49.

Girls 100 Fly — 1. Hadley Pallman (AH) 58.36; 2. Lorelei Lucas (HAZ) 1:01.17; 3. Karissa Legaspi (WVW) 1:03.29; 4. Kyla Becker (WIL) 1:05.67; 5. Miranda Anderson (TUN) 1:06.41; 6. Nicole Castillo (WBA) 1:08.27.

Boys 100 Fly — 1. Jason Casper (AH) 51.16*; 2. David Nelson (WVW) 54.31; 3. Ricardo Albuquerque (WVW) 54.56; 4. Chase Kaschak (HAZ) 55.08; 5. Cody Scholl (HAZ) 57.25; 6. Bilal Derac (WBA) 1:01.06.

Girls 200 Free Relay — 1. AH (Ella Bannon, Kaitlyn Giermanski, Hadley Pallman, Gianna Vachino) 1:42.29; 2. WIL 1:46.78; 3. TUN 1:47.13; 4. WVW 1:51.39; 5. DV 1:51.62; 6. HAZ 1:52.74.

Boys 200 Free Relay — 1. WVW (Cole Bolesta, William Bell, David Nelson, Ricardo Albuquerque) 1:30.82; 2. DV 1:32.70; 3. AH 1:33.30; 4. HAZ 1:33.80; 5. WIL 1:38.32; 6. WS 1:48.28.

* — new District 2 record