LEWISBURG — Numerous WPIAL swimmers made their mark and earned spots in evening championship heats Wednesday on the first day of the PIAA Class 3A championships at Bucknell.
The boys preliminaries saw North Allegheny and Upper St. Clair go 2-3 in the 200-yard medley relay, and they will swim in the finals with seventh seed Peters Township.
A trio from the WPIAL — Central Catholic senior Cinco Perez (third seed), Mt. Lebanon junior Rinzen Sherpa (fourth seed) and North Allegheny senior Danny Lesinski (seventh seed) — will be in the finals of the 200 IM.
Upper St. Clair senior Nazar Zourovski (third seed), Mars sophomore Dom Davis (fourth), North Allegheny senior Zach Totin (fifth) and Latrobe senior Chris Heese (seventh) will represent the WPIAL in the championship heat of the 50 free.
In the 100 fly, Bethel Park junior Jackson Edwards is the sixth seed for the finals, and North Allegheny senior Mason Shantz is seeded seventh.
The North Allegheny and Upper St. Clair boys 200 free relays will go for gold as the No. 3 and No. 4 seeds, respectively.
On the girls’ side, North Allegheny is situated as the No. 3 seed in the 200 medley relay after swimming to a prelim time of 1:44.93.
North Allegheny senior Claire Bacu, the WPIAL champion in the 200 free, will go after gold in the event as the top seed from the preliminaries (1:49.22). She finished as state runner-up last year.
Bacu’s Tigers teammate, junior Julia Tengowski, also will swim the 200 free finals as the fifth seed (1:52.56). Pine-Richland sophomore Whitney Calhoun is seeded seventh (1:53.05).
Fox Chapel freshman Ellie Lange will be the hunted this evening as the top seed in the girls 200 IM (2:03.12).
Fellow Foxes freshman Delaney O’Toole will try to take down State College senior and defending 50 free state champion Molly Workman.
O’Toole is the second seed (22.96) to Workman’s top seed (22.50).
Also in the finals are Peters Township junior Ava Komoroski (fourth seed) and Gateway junior Aliya Rassiane (eighth seed).
Upper St. Clair freshman Catherine Miller will make her PIAA finals debut as the sixth seed in the 100 butterfly. North Allegheny senior Dani Hinkson also is in the finals as the eighth seed.
The Fox Chapel 200 free relay is seeded second (1:35.09), just ahead of third seeded North Allegheny (1:35.99).
The boys consolation and championship finals will be at 4:30 p.m. with the girls finals to follow at 7.
The eight entries in each championship heat will earn medals.
Pennsylvania Cable Network will provide live coverage of each consolation and finals heat.
Before titles are won in swimming, the Class 3A boys champion will be crowned in diving. The winner will be determined after the final dive at about 3:30 p.m.
WPIAL champion Ethan Maravich, a senior from North Allegheny, is seeded third. He took third last year.