Gunner Raymer said he was under the weather and not at his best for the WPIAL Class 3A swimming championships Feb. 26 an 27 at Pitt’s Trees Pool.
“That was a big factor in both of my events,” the Kenyon College (Ohio) commit said. “It was frustrating. I wasn’t 100%.”
But he still was able to go out and be his competitive self and record best times in the 200-yard freestyle and 100-yard breaststroke. His time of 1 minute, 43.63 seconds in the 200 free was good for a fifth-place medal at WPIALs and the 25th seed for states.
Raymer said he was feeling good as the days progressed after WPIALs and was back in the pool at the Furrie Sports Complex prepping for his final PIAA meet at Bucknell. The Class 3A meet is Wednesday and Thursday at Bucknell, with the Class 2A meet Friday and Saturday.
“It’s always a great feeling to get in the pool and still have something to shoot for,” Raymer said.
“I know I can do better with my time at states and better my seed place. It’s just a matter of feeling good, working hard while getting good rest and just fine-tuning some small things with my swim.”
Raymer placed eighth in the 100 breast at WPIALs, and he hoped his time of 59.50 would be good enough to get an at-large bid to states in the 32-swimmer field. But he landed as the sixth alternate when the initial seed lists were released last week.
“Looking at the times last year, I felt that my (59.50) would be in range for a possible trip to states,” Raymer said.
“Obviously, I was cut short. It was a pretty good swim, just not good enough to get to states.”
Raymer said it always is a celebratory time at WPIALs when a sizeable amount of team members can experience the big meet together.
“I know a lot of us got best times, and some wish we could’ve swum better, but the mindset going into WPIALs was very positive, and everyone was excited to get in and go fast,” he said. “This was a really positive experience for the younger swimmers who will be able to come back and go for bigger things next year.”
Junior Aliya Rassiane echoed Raymer’s WPIAL assessment and said she was grateful to be a positive voice to the younger swimmers, several of whom were making their WPIAL debuts.
Two of them, freshman sisters Madeline and Katelyn Pekarek, helped the Gators’ girls 400 free relay make their mark at WPIALs with a state-qualifying time of 3:36.53. That collective swim landed the quartet in fifth place and on the medals podium. Rassiane and senior Gianna Laurenti also will be on the relay that will swim the preliminaries Thursday morning at Bucknell with the hopes of being one of 16 teams to return in the evening for either the consolation or championship final heat.
Gateway is the 19th seed, but Rassiane said she’s confident they can make a move up. She said it’s all about execution.
“Relays are always so much fun,” Rassiane said. “The energy is so high. We are accountable to each other, and that is what drives each of us to do our part and swim fast.”
Rassiane returns to states individually in both the 50 free and the 100 free. She is the ninth seed for both and is looking forward to making it back to an evening session at states for the first time. She took third at WPIALs in the 100 free and was fifth in the 50 free.
Because of a minor technical issue, the PIAA was delayed in posting the Class 3A girls psych sheets with all of the qualifiers and their seeds until Monday afternoon.
Rassiane said that knowing a seed placement is nice, but the main focus is preparing for her events and working to swim her fastest and letting everything else take care of itself.
“I just want to concentrate on doing well in the moment and not worrying about where I am positioned compared to everyone else,” she said.
“I tend to get too in my head when I look at seeds and stuff like that. Whatever time I go is whatever time I go. The big thing is just going up there and having fun.”
Madeline Pekarek placed 11th in the 100 free and 15th in the 100 back as part of her WPIAL debut. Katelyn Pekarek took 15th in the 500 free.
Sophomore Elle Kaminski (200 free relay, 200 medley relay) and junior Dallas Richardson (50 free, 100 free, 200 free relay, 400 free relay) made returns to WPIALs; while junior Adam Pugliano (200 medley relay); sophomores Sebastian Seman (200 medley relay, 400 free relay), Raph Nunez (200 medley relay), John Beigel (200 free relay) and Jacob Beigel (200 free relay, 200 medley relay, 400 free relay); and freshman Catherine Graves (200 free relay, 200 medley relay) experienced the pageantry and energy of WPIAL competition for the first time.
“It was great to see all of the young kids go down there and get the opportunity to swim,” Gateway coach Glenn Raymer said. “There was high energy. They were excited. There were a lot of best times from kids who didn’t think they were going to do well. They did well, especially coming together for relays. For a lot of them, they saw their hard work pay off.”