LEWISBURG — Latrobe senior Chris Heese entered the 50-yard freestyle prelims Wednesday at the PIAA Class 3A championships seeded 13th.

He assured himself of a podium finish and a swim in the championship-final heat with a prelim time of 21.09 seconds.

Heese then dropped 22 hundredths of a second in the finals and held onto seventh overall at 20.94.

“Honestly, that was very unexpected,” said Heese of reaching the championship final at Bucknell.

“I definitely think getting to bed early this past week and getting good rest really helped with that 8 a.m. (prelim) swim. It’s rough swimming that early, but I felt fresh. It’s a great feeling to know that wherever you are seeded, you have a chance to move up and improve your place.”

Heese said the 50 will fuel him for his second individual swim, Thursday’s 100 breaststroke, where he is the hunted as the top seed (54.49).

“That is the real show,” Heese said. “I am just so excited for tomorrow. I am a contender for the gold. I know there are a lot of great guys gunning for me. I will be ready.”

Thursday morning’s preliminaries featuring the 100 free, 500 free, 100 backstroke, 100 breast and 400 free relay will have several Westmoreland County swimmers looking to return for the evening consolation and championship swims.

The Latrobe boys 200 medley relay of Heese, David Vavruska, Charlie Thomson and Dylan Steele bumped up one spot from their Wednesday prelim swim, dropping nearly a second in the consolation final to finish 11th overall in a time of 1:34.91.

Franklin Regional junior Thomas Westerman hoped for a state medal in the 200 free as the No. 7 seed, but he was not able to reach the championship finals.

He did, however, drop time in his consolation swim and finished 12th (1:41.65) for the second year in a row.

The Wildcats boys 200 free relay of Thomson, Steele, Vavruska and Landon Updegraff also swam the consolation final and finished 16th in a time of 1:28.87.

On the girls side, Norwin junior Amber Klingensmith dropped time in the 100 butterfly, both in her prelim swim that qualified her for the consolation final and in the consolation race itself.

She raced to a 56.64 in the prelims, moving her up to 11th for her evening race. She then went faster — 56.38 — and bumped up one spot to 10th overall.

Seventh through 10th place in the 100 fly were separated by just 13 hundredths of a second.